Andrew Norfolk of The Times has won the £5,000 Paul Foot Award 2012, awarded by Private Eye and the Guardian, for his two-year investigation into the targeting and sexual exploitation of teenage girls by gangs of men.
“Andrew is an excellent winner in a really strong and varied field,” said Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, presenting the awards at Bafta. “The Foot awards this year are a powerful post-Leveson riposte to all those who want to think only the worst of journalists.”
Hislop noted that then Times editor James Harding, who backed Norfolk’s investigation, was sacked shortly afterwards.
Rob Waugh, of the Yorkshire Post, was the £2,000 runner-up for his reporting on junketing and abuse of power by high-ranking police officers in Cleveland.
Stephen Wright, of the Daily Mail, was given a special award for his 15 years of research since 1997 into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Hislop initially joked that the Foot awards jury had been unable to reach a decision and had sent a note to the judge saying: “What is a journalist?”
