Caroline Wyatt reveals she hid effects of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis from BBC for 15 years

'You don’t want to be seen as someone who is possibly fallible,' explains the veteran correspondent

After the summer, Wyatt will return to the airwaves as a presenter on BBC Radio Four and the World Service (Rex Features)

Veteran BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt has revealed she hid the effects of multiple sclerosis from the corporation for nearly fifteen years because she was worried she would be seen as unreliable by bosses.

Wyatt, 49, stepped down from her position as religious affairs correspondent last week after revealing she had MS. Wyatt has been dealing with unidentified symptoms for 25 years but was only diagnosed at the end of last year.

Wyatt is one of the BBC’s most respected and well-known correspondents and has worked at the corporation for more than twenty years. She has also held the positions of foreign correspondent and defence correspondent during her time there.

Specialists informed Wyatt there was a chance she had MS after she became “very wobbly” on her feet in Moscow in 2001 but Wyatt continued with her career regardless.

“It wasn’t a diagnosis I liked and, because I wasn’t ill and I was doing a job I loved, I just carried on,” Wyatt told the Radio Times.

“You don’t want to be seen as someone who is possibly fallible, someone who might not be able to do the job well. I didn’t want the BBC to think, ‘We can’t send her somewhere or rely on her’."

“It’s only been the past two years when I’ve had to admit that actually I have got a problem. When I was tired I just hit a wall, and had to go to bed.”

Wyatt first embarked on her career as a trainee at the Beeb in the 1990s. Since then, she has gone on to report from all corners of the globe, covering the fall of the Berlin Wall, the conflicts in Kosovo and Chechnya and later the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wyatt now uses a stick to aid her walking and said she had recently fallen over in the street which came as "a really big shock”.

But Wyatt said although she felt her body was "betraying" her at times, she was determined to live her life to the fullest.

“It is what it is. I am not angry, and I don’t want bitterness to start eating away at me. I don’t know what the future holds, but I am determined to make the most of my life,” she said.

After the summer, Wyatt will return to the airwaves as a presenter on BBC Radio Four and the World Service. She will also have occasional reporting roles for television where they are suited to her medical advice.

A spokesperson for the BBC did not immediately respond to request for comment.