______THE PAUL FOOT AWARD 2012
SHORT LIST ANNOUNCEMENT Embargoed until Monday 18th February 2013
The Judging Panel for The Paul Foot Award 2012 has decided on the following shortlist, in alphabetical order:
Tom Bergin Thomson Reuters
Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake Sunday Times
Ted Jeory Trial by Jeory blog
Alexi Mostrous and Fay Schlesinger The Times
Claire Newell , Graeme Paton, Holly Watt and Robert Winnett Daily Telegraph
Andrew Norfolk The Times
Rob Waugh Yorkshire Post
Stephen Wright Daily Mail
Private Eye magazine and The Guardian newspaper set up the award for investigative or campaigning journalism in memory of Paul Foot, the journalist and great campaigner who died in 2004. The prize of ₤5000 will be presented on Tuesday 26th February at BAFTA in London, with each of the runners up receiving ₤1000.
The judges for this year’s Award are, in alphabetical order, Clare Fermont, Bill Hagerty, Ian Hislop, Brian MacArthur (Chair) and Alan Rusbridger.
Further information on each of the eight short-listed campaigns, as well as the long-listed entries, is outlined overleaf.
For media enquiries, please contact Tracey Jennings, Midas PR Tel: 020 7361 7860 / email: [email protected].
www.private-eye.co.uk Citations on Behalf of the Judges
THE SHORT LIST
Tom Bergin - Thomson Reuters
Starbucks slips the UK tax hook
Bringing corporate tax avoidance to the top of the news and political agendas in the UK, Reuters’ first story revealed how Starbucks had used a variety of tactics to cut its UK tax bill. This four-month investigation reported Starbucks had paid no corporation tax in the previous three years - and had paid only £8.6 million on £3.1 billion turnover in the previous 13 years.
The fallout from the investigation was significant – from the huge amount of media interest the story attracted, both in the UK and internationally, to Chief Executive Howard Schultz having to discuss the matter on a conference call with analysts. The company’s approval rating amongst UK consumers fell sharply, and tax campaigners targeted the group for peaceful protests in the UK and Ireland.
The story also attracted wide political interest. A number of MPs called for the company to be investigated; the head of HMRC faced tough questions when giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in November, and Starbucks’s CFO had to fly in from Seattle to answer questions at another Public Accounts Committee meeting. Before the Starbucks affair, the government had highlighted the tax contribution big business made, and the media had received some criticism from Government members for suggesting companies didn’t pay their fair share. After the story broke, the Prime Minister said he was “not happy” - calling for the HMRC to do more, and that governments should act together to stop tax avoidance. Shortly afterwards, the UK teamed up with Germany to push the G20 group of nations to adopt measures to ensure multinational companies paid their “fair share” of taxes.
Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake - Sunday Times
Generals for hire
This investigation followed a tip off the Sunday Times Insight team received from a former permanent secretary that the Ministry of Defence’s procurement system was being “contaminated” by retired generals lobbying to win multi-million pound defence deals for arms firms, in breach of official rules. During the course of their three month investigation Insight recorded some of our foremost former military leaders talking candidly about their lobbying activities for defence firms in return for large fees.
The Sunday Times’ reporters’ fictitious arms company was able, for the first time, to expose the back-scratching that was taking place, and also demonstrate the weakness of the official watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which they reported was ignored by some ex-military bosses. One of the generals had successfully run a secret campaign parliament for a £500 million military programme which would benefit his Israeli defence client at a time when he was supposed to be barred from lobbying.
This collaborative effort saw Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, immediately announce an inquiry into the Sunday Times’s allegations; Royal British Legion president Lieutenant- General Sir John Kiszely was forced to resign as president of the Royal British Legion after being caught describing how he used his role to lobby for his defence clients; and the story led to increased pressure to scrap Acoba, replace it with a new independent regulator and introduce a complete ban on lobbying by former public servants - particularly military chiefs.
Ted Jeory - Trial by Jeory blog
Investigations in Tower Hamlets
Trial by Jeory was set up in June 2010 to keep issues in the politics of Tower Hamlets on the news agenda. It has regularly provided splashes for local paper, East London Advertiser and has in the past year seen one of its stories appearing in the Evening Standard, and the blog featured in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs.
Recent posts have delved in to a range of issues including an exclusive story on a Labour councillor arrested over an alleged threat to kill an opponent at a council meeting, which subsequently ran in the Evening Standard. Ted Jeory’s long-running investigation into Brick Lane “curry king” Shiraj Haque, one of Lutfur Rahman’s main financial backers during the 2010 mayoral election, saw Haque convicted of re-labelling cheap wine in his restaurants as a more high quality, expensive brand. Another post highlighted discrepancies in invoices submitted by key advisers to the mayor for consultancy work, which led to an in-house fraud investigation, and an additional expenses cover up was exposed in another post which reported on a senior director and her deputy’s £855 first class rail tickets to Manchester on expenses – with a standard return fare of £74 each, which Trial by Jeory showed the council had tried to hide.
The stories submitted for the Award highlighted the success of the blog in achieving its main objective - regular posts to keep the council’s executive on its toes.
Alexi Mostrous and Fay Schlesinger - The Times
Secrets of the tax avoiders
The Treasury estimates tax avoidance in Britain cost £7 billion a year. This eight month investigation exposed an ingenious variety of tax avoidance schemes and strategies being used to avoid tax in Britain. Some involved taking salary in the form of loans, others required a leveraged investment into films and music. One even entailed searching for treasure on the seabed.
The team undertook several covert recording operations. One targeted Peak Performance, the suppliers of the K2 tax scheme. Mostrous and Schlesinger established K2’s biggest beneficiary was comedian Jimmy Carr, who used it to shelter £3 million a year. Another operation exposed a music-investment scheme used by members of Take That to shelter £26 million.
This was an investigation that cut through the intricacies and complicated mechanics of each scheme, many of which had been designed to create the impression of commerciality. Before publishing, The Times spent hours with several accountants and tax QCs to confirm their initial conclusions. Highly complex transactions were then translated in to graphics and intelligible copy for publication. Several front page stories in The Times last summer prompted widespread outrage, with Mostrous and Schlesinger then broadening their investigation to examine tax havens such as Monaco.
Since The Times’ stories ran, the Government has increased HMRC powers - and the debate Mostrous and Schlesinger began in to dodgy tax avoidance schemes continues.
Claire Newell, Graeme Paton, Holly Watt and Robert Winnett - Daily Telegraph
Exam board investigation
This undercover investigation produced a series of articles exposing how exam boards are driving down standards and aggressively competing with one another to win business from schools. The team exposed examiners were giving teachers secret advice on how to improve GCSE and A level results, and how teachers paying up to £230 to attend seminars were being advised on questions and what wording to use to obtain higher marks.
The undercover team were told by a chief examiner from one of the country’s biggest exam boards that a GCSE test had so little content she could not believe it had been approved by the Government’s official regulators.
Following the disclosures the Education Secretary called for an urgent inquiry and Michael Gove has since announced proposals to reform the exams children sit at 16 to ensure standards are raised. This includes scrapping GSCEs for core subjects in favour of eBaccs and allowing only one exam board to administer each subject nationwide to avoid boards gaining business by offering easier exams than their competitors. The official exams regulator, Ofqual, announced that seminars to help teachers boost their pupils’ performance would be banned.
The Daily Telegraph team’s investigation could have long term consequences for the British education system and how children are taught and accessed.
Andrew Norfolk - The Times
Child sexual exploitation
Andrew Norfolk’s two year investigation exposing of investigation into a hidden crime model involving the targeting, grooming and sexual exploitation of teenage girls by organised groups of men has prompted two Government-ordered inquiries, a Parliamentary inquiry and a new national action plan on child sexual exploitation.
The investigation revealed a crime model that police and care agencies refused to recognise – that most of the victims were white and a majority of those in identified abuse networks were men of Pakistani origin.
Andrew Norfolk’s powerful articles revealed how the reluctance of agencies to acknowledge and confront a widespread form of abuse in deprived northern communities had broken families and shattered the lives of some of society’s most vulnerable children.
Andrew Norfolk’s reports consistently ran throughout last year, exposing past failures to protect children and prosecute offenders - when detailed intelligence was held about victims and perpetrators. The campaign has been instrumental in forcing all concerned with the protection of children to give a higher priority to cases of sexual exploitation.
Rob Waugh - Yorkshire Post
Junketing and abuse of power by high-ranking police officers and officials
The Yorkshire Post’s series of investigations looked into high-ranking police officers and officials at both national and local level, revealing a raft of mis-spending, abuses of power and conflicts of interest. Locally, the newspaper’s exposés focused on Cleveland Police’s chief constable, police authority chairman and police authority chief executive - showing that all three of the most powerful individuals connected to the force were indulging in large-scale junketing, often courtesy of corporate credit cards.
On a national level, the newspaper’s investigation revealed the country’s most senior and influential policing body, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), had indulged in a ‘jobs for the boys’ scandal when bypassing public spending rules to hand lucrative consultancy contracts to senior police officers – often days after they had retired from their day jobs. This was in contrast to the ACPO’s advice to forces across the country on ensuring competition and value for money.
The third part of the investigation focused on the Chief Police Officers Staff Association (CPOSA) into the funding behind the unofficial ‘trade union’ for senior police officers that revealed it had received millions of pounds in public funding, despite its members being among the highest paid public officials in the country. Spending on CPOSA included police authorities up and down the country funding a ‘war chest’ for chief officers to defend disciplinary action brought by police authorities and criminal enquiries.
The investigation involved painstaking in-depth research and protracted battles and appeals to get information disclosed. The results of Rob Waugh’s investigations have led to police investigations of senior officials, a House of Commons Debate on the ACPO exposé and an ACPO inquiry, and reviews into CPOSA funding.
Stephen Wright - Daily Mail
Stephen Lawrence campaign
Stephen Wright first reported on Stephen Lawrence in February 1997, when he carried extensive research into what was then a relatively low-profile unsolved murder in South East London. Since then, Stephen Wright has spearheaded the Daily Mail’s ‘Justice for Stephen’ campaign that has seen him continue to cover the Lawrence story right through to the recent trial of two of the original suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris, and heading a comprehensive 20 page background on the case when the proceedings ended in January 2012.
Stephen Wright’s initial investigation led to Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre famously branding the suspects ‘Murderers’ in February 1997. Fifteen years dogged reporting on the case followed, with Stephen Wright securing a number of scoops, and breaking significant stories to keep the case in the public eye. This included reporting on the racist and violent pasts of the suspects and on police blunders, which led to Home Secretary Jack Straw ordering a public inquiry. Stephen Wright highlighted the need for double jeopardy laws to be reformed to allow three of Stephen Lawrence’s alleged killers (who had been acquitted) to stand trial again if new evidence emerged.
Notable scoops included reporting on a police watchdog report that found conclusive evidence of police errors which allowed Stephen Lawrence’s killers to escape justice; a jury nobbling scandal involving one of the suspects, when he was controversially acquitted of murdering another man; revealing how a draft copy of the judge-led inquiry alleged the Lawrence murder probe was hampered by racism across virtually all the ranks; and naming and shaming the officers who escaped discipline proceedings over the bungled Lawrence murder probe.
Over the following years, Stephen Wright broke several other highly significant stories on the Lawrence case, including the £320,000 compensation pay-out to Stephen Lawrence’s parents and the forensic breakthrough in 2007 which prompted the trial of Dobson and Norris.
In order not to jeopardise the case the Daily Mail did not publish what would have been the biggest story of them all – the decision to charge David Norris and Gary Dobson with murder, in September 2010.
THE LONG LIST
The judges also considered, and highly commended, other entries long-listed for the Award which were, in alphabetical order:
Kaya Burgess - The Times ‘Cities Fit for Cycling’ campaign
David Cohen - Evening Standard Ladder for London
Gareth Davies – Croydon Advertiser Lillian’s Law campaign
Ed Hammond and Caroline Binham - Financial Times Serious shortcomings: The case of the SFO and the Tchenguiz brothers
Harry Wilson and Richard Tyler - Sunday and Daily Telegraph Interest rate swap mis-selling - ends -