Tributes have been paid to Worcester university graduate Natasha Bateman, originally from Martley, who has died at the age of 32.

The BBC Journalist was a producer and presenter with BBC Digital Current Affairs, a role that saw her telling people’s stories from all over the UK.

The BBC's Director of News Fran Unsworth said Natasha was a "gifted young journalist" and a "great talent."

Reflecting on her career, Natasha's parents told the BBC: "From childhood Natasha was fascinated by language and the power of words. In her teenage years she was drawn to the media and to work for the BBC was her dream. Working on digital news gave Natasha the platform to explore new approaches to broadcasting something she was so passionate about."

They added: "Shakespeare summed up Natasha's approach to journalism well in A Midsummer Night's Dream: 'Though she be but little she is fierce.'"

Natasha’s route to what she described as her “dream” role began even before university when she was working at a local commercial radio station in Worcester.

She combined her lectures and studies around working on the radio’s breakfast show, getting up at 4.30am but still making it to lectures for 9.30am.

Natasha was offered a job with BBC Hereford and Worcester radio station in her third year, but while working there asked if she could shadow at BBC WM in Birmingham.

“I sat in for a while. Someone was sick and they said ‘could you cover?’ I got shifts from there and I went on to produce programmes,” said Natasha in an interview with the Worcester News in 2017.

From there, she worked for the One Show in Manchester, producing current affairs films. Two years later she moved back to Birmingham to produce a breakfast show, then began at the BBC in 2017.

Josh Reynolds, who worked alongside Natasha on the One Show, says she made a lasting impression there as "a bad-ass, fearless journalist who wouldn't take no for an answer when she believed in a story, especially when it came to female-focused stories."