She was educated at King's College London where she graduated with a degree in English in 1975. She has been a reporter for the BBC's Panorama Programme since 1988. She is married to the former Conservative MP John Maples.

Abbas Al Lawati, a reporter for Gulf News, who was on the Mavi Marmara during the Gaza flotilla raid, has criticised her reporting of the raid in a Panorama documentary, "Death in the Med", saying that it was either a result of "weak journalism" or "deep bias".