Christopher Wenner

Wenner was the third of the four sons of Michael Alfred Wenner (1921–2020), a British author, company director, former diplomat who served as Ambassador to El Salvador (from 1967–1971),[5] and Gunnilla Ståhle (1931–1986), who was Swedish.[6]

Wenner was educated at Stonyhurst College,[7] a boarding independent school near Clitheroe in Lancashire, which he left in 1973,[7] followed by Balliol College at the University of Oxford, where he acted in the Dramatic Society.[8]

On 14 September 1978, Wenner joined the British children's television programme Blue Peter. However, he left on 23 June 1980 (on the same day as his co-presenter Tina Heath), after the production team decided not to renew his contract as he was "deeply unpopular with the viewers."[9] He returned to acting, taking a part in the 1984 Doctor Who adventure The Awakening, although in the final cut, his role was reduced to that of a non-speaking character. He then focused on journalism, although he returned to Blue Peter in 1983 and 1998 to celebrate the show's birthdays.

In 1985, whilst working as a war correspondent in Beirut, he went missing; he turned up again, safe and well, after 18 days. In 1991, he shot footage of a demonstration in Dili, East Timor, preceding a massacre and during the massacre itself. He filmed inside the Santa Cruz cemetery among the dead and the dying, as soldiers advanced in a well-organised operation against a huge crowd of East Timorese engaged in peaceful protest. It was Wenner's footage that brought the plight of the East Timorese to world attention. In 1992, his work was awarded the Amnesty International UK Media Award for Yorkshire Television's First Tuesday episode "Cold Blood – the Massacre of East Timor".[10][11][12]

In 1999, Wenner returned to East Timor under the name "Max Stahl". For his coverage, he won the 2000 Rory Peck Award for Hard News. His audio visual material on East Timor's struggle for independence has been listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register as "On the birth of a nation: turning points" in the year 2013.[13] In December 2019, the national parliament of Timor-Leste voted unanimously to grant Wenner Timorese citizenship in recognition of his role in the fight for Timorese liberation.[14]

Wenner was one of the first Western journalists to recognize the scope of tensions in Chechnya. He travelled there with cameraman, filmmaker and author Peter Vronsky in 1992 to report on the break-away republic and nuclear weapons materials smuggling for the Canadian produced television special The Hunt for Red Mercury.

In 1998, whilst working as an ITN journalist for Channel 4, Wenner was beaten by Serb civilians during a mass protest.

On 22 November 2019, Wenner was awarded the Order of Timor-Leste by President Francisco Guterres.[15]

Wenner was a father of four, and ran his own production company while continuing his career in journalism. In April 2012, it was reported that he had been receiving treatment for throat cancer. On 28 October 2021, former East Timor President José Ramos-Horta announced that Wenner had died from cancer at a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, at the age of 66.[14]

• BBC – I Love Blue Peter – Christopher Wenner presenter biography