Charles Thomson was named crime and investigative reporter of the year at the Regional Press Awards on Wednesday, March 12.
He collected the gong at a ceremony in central London, where he also received a commendation in the weekly reporter of the year category.
Charles runs our weekly London Uncovered newsletter, full of exclusive investigations and in-depth reporting on everything from dodgy developers and corrupt councils to miscarriages of justice.
Judges said: “Charles Thomson’s dogged reporting in the pursuit of justice is local journalism at its finest.”
In January last year, he posed as a criminal to infiltrate an organised crime gang’s online group, exposing how it was smuggling the drug spice into prisons by disguising it as legal correspondence.
It was also sending internet hotspots into prisons by hiding them in beard trimmers and electric fans, so prisoners could secretly communicate with the criminal underworld from their cells.
Charles wrote a series of stories about Havering paedophile teacher Michael Quinlan, including one in which he tracked Quinlan down and confronted him on camera. Lawyers said Charles’s sustained reporting saw the number of complainants more than double (Image: Newsquest) Judges praised Charles’s work exposing paedophile teacher Michael Quinlan, serially convicted of abusing children at Romford’s Royal Liberty School.
Lawyers suing Havering Council began with five complainants but now have over a dozen, plus ten witnesses, for which they credit Charles’s sustained investigation.
He even pinned Quinlan down to a Chelmsford coffee shop and confronted him on camera – the first time the abuser’s face had ever been published, despite repeated convictions.
Charles’s work for child abuse survivors in Islington was also recognised, after his stories were presented as evidence at formal hearings which resulted in pay-outs for victims.
Finally, he was commended for his series on east London estates blighted by brazen drug-dealing and prostitution.
On one estate, he found a hidden knife. On another, where he found syringes, a resident warned that if the authorities did not intervene, somebody would die.
Weeks later, a man died. By following that case through the court, Charles uncovered a growing death toll across east London from a novel synthetic opioid called protonitazene.
Charles said: “It was an honour to be recognised again by the judges, particularly up against such stiff competition.
“Thankfully, Newsquest values and invests in investigative journalism when so many others have cut back on it.”
Other nominees were from WalesOnline, the Liverpool Echo, the Belfast Telegraph and Newsquest’s Herald in Scotland.
