Archives: Exposing Britain entriesTTTT

Sanchia Berg and Katie Inman are reporters at BBC News specialising in Social Affairs. Their investigation Revealing the closed world of family courts described what happens in care cases in the family court, through four individual stories told in detail, using verbatim notes, interviews with families, and court documents. This pioneering work revealed how the acute shortage of resources in health and social care has a direct and permanent impact on families and shed light on the hidden plight of Roma children.

Their shortlisted pieces are:

• Why I’m seizing the chance to scrutinise the family courts
• A mum’s ‘remarkable turnaround’ to win her baby back
• Fears of a hidden rise of Roma children in care
• An experiment in Open Justice
• A Mother’s Story

The stories are the work of the Liberty Investigates team – Eleanor Rose, investigations editor, and Aaron Walawalkar, Jessica Purkiss and Mirren Gidda, investigative journalists. Their investigation tells the stories of the 140 who died in asylum seeker housing since 2016, showing a rise in deaths from 4 in 2019 to 48 in 2021

Liberty Investigates is an editorially independent journalism unit based at the human rights organisation Liberty. It aims to expose injustice through rigorous and collaborative investigative journalism. It launched in April 2020.

Their shortlisted pieces are:

• Revealed: dozens of vulnerable asylum seekers have died in Home Office housing since 2020
• Revealed: ‘Shocking’ number of asylum seeker infant deaths in Home Office housing
• Pregnant asylum seekers face ‘dehumanising’ conditions that ‘risk babies lives’
• Asylum Seeker Memorial Project

Maeve Shearlaw and Christopher Cherry are filmmakers at the Guardian. Their investigation On the ground: UK cost of living crisis focused on the people running vital services including food banks, ‘warm banks’, and ‘hygiene banks’ in working class communities ravaged by the cost of living crisis. They are committed to continuing to cover these stories as the UK faces the worst fall in living standards since records began.

Their shortlisted pieces are:

• The women on a ‘war footing’ as the cost of living crisis deepens
• Mould, cold and a community hub offering hope in the cost of living crisis
• The Liverpool and Everton fans fighting to close down food banks
• World Cup, ‘warm banks’ and a community pub fighting the cost of living crisis

John Phipps is a reporter, critic and editor based in London. He works as a contributing writer for 1843 Magazine and a fiction editor of The Fence. In 2021, he was awarded a prize from the British Society of Magazine editors and was nominated for New Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards. His investigation The lifeboat crew on the frontline of Britain’s migrant crisis highlights the creeping politicisation of once universally admired institutions and the strain that questions around migration have placed on Britain’s communities.

His shortlisted piece is:

• The lifeboat crew on the frontline of Britain’s migrant crisis

Dean Kirby is The i paper’s Investigations Correspondent. He has been reporting the news for 25 years. His awards include the Medical Journalists’ Association News Story of the Year for an investigation into PPE supply chain chaos in the Covid pandemic. He has been highly commended for the 2022 Hugh Cudlipp Award for Investigative Journalism and shortlisted for scoop of the year at the British Journalism Awards for his work on the war in Ukraine. His investigation The Prepayment Meter Scandal exposed the national scandal of how debt agents acting for energy firms were using court warrants to break into homes to forcibly fit prepayment meters that leave the poorest families in the cold and dark.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• National scandal of forced installation of prepayment meters
• Prepay meter scandal grows: 99.99% of court warrants are waved through
• Inside the courtroom where it takes minutes to force hundreds of people onto prepayment meters
• Magistrates granting energy firms prepayment meter warrants in ‘private back rooms’ at court
• Prepayment meters: ‘It was so cold my daughter had an asthma attack, but I can’t afford to heat our home’
• Do not give energy firms the right to force entry over prepay meters, courts told

Stephen Topping is a reporter at the Manchester Evening News. His investigation reported on the death of Awaab Ishak due to prolonged exposure to mould, the scandal at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and the subsequent campaign to change the law in the toddler’s memory. This exposed the culture of blaming tenants for mould and pressed for an urgent change.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• A two-year-old is dead and other children are struggling to breathe
• A forgotten child in the Greater Manchester flats that are full of fear
• No apology, a last minute confession, massive pay rises – the housing bosses who failed Awaab Ishak
• The nasty stench of racism pervades the tragedy of little Awaab Ishak
• After little Awaab’s death the government is now promising change. It can’t come soon enough
• ’72 people died in Grenfell but so little changed… it took another tragedy in Awaab for action to finally happen’

Noel Titheradge is a senior investigative journalist for BBC News based in London. He focuses on uncovering failings in institutional care, abuses of power and social injustices. A former producer at Panorama, he writes long reads and produces and directs documentaries. His investigative series Profits, punches and private equity: Inside Britain’s Children’s Homes uncovered appalling failures at two companies making enormous profits, exposing regulatory loopholes and leading to closures.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• ‘Abuse, assaults and big profits’ – children’s homes staff speak out
• Children’s homes close after BBC reveals failures
• Girl Groomed in Children’s Home
• Children punched and hit over the head in care homes rated ‘good’
• Lead Report: Systemic Abuse in Children’s Homes

Craig Easton is a photographer exploring issues around social policy, identity, culture and community. In 2021, he was awarded Photographer of the Year at the SONY World Photography Awards and in 2022 was recognised with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society. His project Thatcher’s Children is a long-term engagement with one extended family exploring how successive governments’ social policies have created and maintained the conditions for chronic intergenerational poverty.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• “I want my kids to have a chance” – What happened to Thatcher’s Children?
• Is Anybody Listening? – Exhibition at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
• Stark images of childhood in 80s Thatcher Britain
• Thatcher’s Children

Ria is a reporter for ITV News London. She aims to take people on a journey of deeper understanding regarding youth violence. Ria believes that capturing both the darkness and light within people’s experiences is a journalistic imperative. She feels solution-focused reporting is vital – that there must always be room for hope.

Her shortlisted pieces are:

• ‘Inside Croydon’, Part 1: London Road
• Part 2: The Undertakers
• Part 3: The Funeral
• Part 4: The Future
• Damilola and the Hope Collective
• Cut Short

The stories are the work of the Liberty Investigates team – Eleanor Rose, investigations editor, and Aaron Walawalkar, Jessica Purkiss and Mirren Gidda, investigative journalists – with Mark Townsend, home affairs editor of the Observer. 

Liberty Investigates is an editorially independent journalism unit based at the human rights organisation Liberty. It aims to expose injustice through rigorous and collaborative investigative journalism. It launched in April 2020.

Their shortlisted pieces are:

• Uncovered: the brutal secrets of UK deportation flight Esparto 11
• Suicidal asylum seekers subjected to ‘dangerous’ use of force by guards at detention centre
• Asylum accommodation deaths ‘twice as high’ as Home Office admitted

Noel Titheradge is a senior investigative journalist for BBC News based in London. He focuses on uncovering failings in institutional care, abuses of power and social injustices. A former producer at Panorama, he writes long reads and produces and directs documentaries.

Rianna Croxford is an investigations correspondent for BBC News. Based in London, she specialises in investigating abuses of power in politics and minority communities. She became the corporation’s youngest national correspondent when she was just 25-years-old.

Their shortlisted pieces are:

• The Children Selling Explicit Videos on OnlyFans
• Under the Skin of OnlyFans
• OnlyFans: How it Handles Illegal Sex Videos – BBC Investigation

David Conn is investigations correspondent at The Guardian and the author of several books. He has been writing for 25 years about the Hillsborough disaster, highlighting and exposing the injustices perpetrated afterwards by the police and English legal system, and covering the bereaved families’ and survivors’ relentless campaign for justice.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• Hillsborough Families attack ludicrous acquittals of police
• Hillsborough Families’ Ordeal has ended in an insult
• Questionnaires shed doubt on ruling
• Judge Rules Andrew Devine is 97th Victim
• Tributes Paid to 97th Victim
• The Great Betrayal: how the Hillsborough families were failed by the justice system

Samuel Lovett is a senior news correspondent at The Independent. He covers a range of beats, with a particular focus on health and science. As a former science correspondent, he extensively covered the pandemic and investigated various aspects of the UK’s response to Covid-19, as well as its wider impacts on society.

His shortlisted piece is:

• Covid and lockdown: What we’ve lost

Patrick Strudwick is a Special Correspondent for the i paper, a former LGBT editor of BuzzFeed News, and for 13 years has been exposing conversion therapy. His original undercover investigation, in which he subjected himself to the “treatment”, paved the way to the proposed ban, and more recently he’s revealed how corrective rape is taking place on British soil.

His shortlisted pieces are:

• Conversion therapy: My pastor raped me to try to ‘heal’ my lesbianism. Boris Johnson must ban all gay ‘cures’
• Conversion therapy is an assault on the psyche: what is there to consult on?
• Conversion therapy: The Government’s proposed ban protects ‘therapists’ and fails LGBT victims

Hidden Homicides was reported by Louise Tickle, an award-winning journalist with expertise on domestic abuse and child protection. Additional reporting was by Claudia Williams and data journalist Patricia Clarke. The producer was Matt Russell, and original music was by Tom Kinsella. The editor and executive producer was Basia Cummings.

Their shortlisted entries are:

• Hidden in plain sight
• A killer twice missed
• Fight on
• The Uncounted

Their shortlisted entries are:

• “I believe British soldiers murdered my sister. Now I want the truth”
• “He killed her and took me to see the body. My mind went blank”
• Nine British soldiers and the murder of Agnes Wanjiru
• ‘Soldier X’: What we know so far about the killing of Agnes Wanjiru
• Crying with laughter over a mother’s death: soldiers joked about ‘murder’ on Facebook
• The Army’s dirty secret