Andy: Page
Ian: 94, the Privat Eye Podcast.
Andy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of page 94.
This is the Paul Foot Awards winner Spectacular.
Over the last six days, you have heard all about the shortlisted entries
for this year's Paul Foot Award for campaigning and investigative journalism.
Six fantastic stories.
We're gonna be finding out who has actually won the big gong
and check in a moment's time.
Before that, though, we're gonna go to last year's winner, Tristan
Kirk of the Evening Standard to.
Us what his story was about, and more importantly, how things
have changed since last year.
So over to Tristan.
Tristen: Yeah.
My reports were on, the Single Justice procedure, which is a, criminal
case, process, deals with hundreds of thousands of allegations each year.
and there are deep flaws in the system whereby people are
harshly and unjustly convicted.
In a system which is set up for cost cutting and efficiency and
not necessarily for fairness.
So my reports brought out some of those cases that pass through the
system against people with dementia.
People who are grieving deaths, who are.
Facing criminal convictions for not paying bills there in their time of need
and, are reporting brought to the fore, some of those flaws, as well as some
of the other problems with the system about, targets being set for dealing
with justice, which obviously, leads to.
Efficiency being put above fairness.
Andy: The details of the stories that you had found were shocking
because they, there were people being prosecuted over really minor things.
People who had never done anything wrong before.
And frequently, as you say, people who didn't really understand the
system that they had been put into.
And then people who.
If they, for example, had dementia and had not, renewed their driving
insurance, somehow were put into this enormous justice machine, which that
led to them being criminally convicted.
And it, it, was really, it was outrageous to hear, and I think it got compared at
the time to the post office story just because it, of the evident unfairness, the
evident injustice baked into this system.
I hope that you're gonna say that in the years since you won the award.
This has all changed.
Tristen: I, wish I could say it's all changed.
There are positives.
I think winning the award.
Was, obviously a great accolade, but what it did was it put the stories and the
issue onto, a level that I think made the government sit up and take notice.
It's been almost a year and the problems that were identified.
Back then still exist.
Okay.
And the system continues to operate, largely unre reformed, which to me
is a, is an ongoing scandal, and something of a national disgrace.
But the, labor government has, undertaken a consultation between March and May to
ask what possible changes could be made.
And so there is a sort of a light at the end of the tunnel that they
are thinking about changing things, making prosecutors in the system read
the mitigation letters rather simple.
Okay.
Change to things.
Yeah.
the kind of obvious thing that you would think already happens, but doesn't.
The problem I have is that, it's now mid-May, and the government
hasn't committed to any kind of a timetable for when they might.
Do this.
And so this system rolls on week by week.
This is a system that was invented in 2015, so this has
been going on for many, years.
The fact that I've started reporting on it doesn't mean that
it's only just started happening.
Andy: As we are speaking this morning, the latest story about the single justice
procedure written by you was published on the standard website three hours ago
about a mother who was convicted of not paying a an eight pound 75 car bill while
she was grieving, the death of her baby.
And that's, it's clearly these things are ongoing.
Tristen: It, makes you really furious to be honest with you, to, come across a case
like that in, in the summer last year.
I looked into, a case, jointly with ITV News who went down to, to
speak to her of a mother who had.
Lost her baby in tra tragic circumstances.
and at that time, grieving obviously devastated.
She hadn't paid her car insurance.
She was then prosecuted and convicted in the single justice procedure.
And once we'd highlighted that case, they went back, revisited it.
It was obviously wrong, not something that our court should be doing,
and the conviction was overturned.
And then we move forward a year and we have the latest case.
Which was literally last week of a mother who lost her baby
in terrible circumstances and, didn't pay for the car tax.
It's almost exactly the same thing, and we are nearly a year later and
we're, still dealing with the problem.
It just makes you really mad that, nobody in power has said.
Okay, there might be bigger changes we need to make to this system, but there
are these obvious small changes that can be made, and yet nobody's doing it.
So as much as I'm happy that there are politicians and officials who
are looking at this every week.
These cases come up.
Winning the Paul Ford Award was a, just a fantastic launchpad for this story
and I really appreciated that, this recognition of an issue that really had
trucked on in the background for me for.
Many months, if not years, without receiving much attention at all.
And I think Privatized got an incredible record of highlighting
and recognizing stories and issues that don't grab the national media
agenda in any way that really struggle to make that kind of breakthrough.
And, I appreciate that, and that's obviously led to an awful lot
of, other things to do with the single justice procedure being
put onto the national agenda.
As a consequence, a few months after winning the award, I
reported on a, very, very niche.
Anomaly within the system to do with train fair evasions, that, people have
been convicted and, sentenced in the single justice procedure of fair evasion,
when that wasn't allowed to be done.
In the single justice procedure because of its fast track court process nature.
It was a very technical niche story that, people on train blogs and
enthusiasts had been talking out for a long time, and incredibly unexpectedly.
That issue was then seized upon by the government and
the courts and something like.
70 odd thousand convictions were then overturned.
I really do believe that's something that wouldn't have happened if this issue
weren't on the national agenda because it's, that's the kind of thing that could
very, easily be swept under the carpet.
but it's because.
Privat Eye had seized on this and said, this is a really big issue.
I do, genuinely believe that, helped to convince people in power to say,
look, we need to take this seriously.
We can't just sweep this one under the carpet.
Andy: So thanks to Tristan there.
that was last year's award.
Now we're gonna go over to Ian as he makes his speech and
announcement of this year's winner.
Ian: good evening and welcome to the Foot Awards 2025.
These are the premier journalistic awards.
There was another big event for journalists, the Sahari Evans
Investigative Journalist Summit.
this took place.
Earlier this month, no one from private eye invited.
but it featured a lot of prominent UK figures.
One of these figures who appeared on the platform was billed as a truth teller.
His name was Alistair Campbell,
WTF as the younger journalists say.
And WMD
as us older ones do.
So this is a traditional event.
it is a particularly sad day.
Today is the death of Brexit,
which obviously is great, sadness all round.
particularly for the Tory, papers who've been claiming benefits for all.
All those years, Boris Johnson writing, obviously fellow journalist, he's
cheap, but inevitable.
he wrote about Kier.
He said Kier was the orange bull chewing manacled, gimp of Brussels.
And we always tell young journalists write about what you know.
I, some of you will remember that a lot of toy mps were actually found with
orange balls in manacles at various stages of the last government anyway.
It's slightly odd for the male to actually run that.
it's a family newspaper.
The mail, it's the Roth Me family newspaper, but I think maybe
they think the word non dom is some sort of s and m thing.
Anyway, the foot awards are 20 years old, like a, fine old port or a really
rotten new free port like tea side.
In the olden days, I just wanted to give a bit of history.
this event was co-funded by The Guardian, but the Guardian became very short
of money, and as they still are, and the guardian decided they could no
longer pay for the award or for this party, which let's be honest, they're
down to their last billion pounds.
In the holding fund.
it's no wonder they had to sell off the observer.
They've sold it to a company called Tortoise, which you all know, named after
ESOP's fable of the tortoise and the ha brain scheme to run a Sunday paper.
I always say at this event, I find it very cheering and I always
say journalism is alive and well.
And I feel a bit like Joe Biden's PR team.
No, he's fine.
He's fine.
No, he's very well, he's fine.
Really kicking strong.
Tough,
but.
I do mean it.
I, do genuinely believe it and every year I get inspired by,
the entries, for these awards.
And this award is named after Paul Foot.
Paul was an absolutely extraordinary man, and brilliant journalist.
It is extraordinary to think about Paul and his legacy going on.
there are two documentaries about Lockerby now.
And his first special, the flight from Justice.
Paul followed that story and we are still following it today.
He was one of the first to write about the infected blood scandal decades ago,
and you watch a protest going on now.
Someone wrote to me about hand ratty, god, 1960s miscarriage.
Someone still wants to rectify that.
He wrote about the Birmingham six, the Guildford four death on the
Rock, the Piper Alpha disaster, the Scott Report, and so many more.
Paul was always.
A, brilliant journalist, but B, he did it with a lightness of touch.
I, was looking it up and I found he had actually done the joke about
privatization in the health service the first time, and the headline
was, the NHS safe is in my hands.
that was 25 years ago.
this event still convinces me that there are real people out there writing
really good stories that matter.
And we have a long list of 10 the Times The Guardian livable, post
Liberty, open democracy, London centric, proving we're not Reuters
Institute, nothing from the mail This year, I was hoping for a joint entry.
the mail on Sunday, their Let Be is Innocent campaign.
and the male podcast killer nurse coming to get you.
Anyway, maybe next year the pull Foot Awards 2025.
Patrick Butler and Josh Halliday.
Andy: Patrick, Josh, congratulations on
Patrick: winning.
You must be very glad I'm completely over the moon.
Of all the awards of all the journalistic awards.
This is the one, this is the one that when we've discussed it, we've
thought this is the one we really want to win, and my God, we've won it.
It's amazing.
Andy: We've just spoken to.
Kirk last year's winner who talked about the changes in the single justice
procedure, his story, and the how the stories evolved from last year to this.
In an ideal world, when you're back, neck for next year's award, what would you
like to have seen happen with this story?
Josh: if we are back here in a year's time, we'd like to see an end to the sort
of persecution of unpaid carers, an end to the criminal prosecutions, an end to.
The, punishing of people via this cliff edge fiasco.
And, this is really, an important point about does the state side with
unpaid carers who are propping up the social care system and, give
them the benefit of the doubt when they are just trying to survive.
That's all they're doing.
They're not trying to calm the system.
They're not, defrauding the public purse by earning an
average of 50 p or one pound.
On over the threshold for a year or two.
They're just trying to survive in an incredibly difficult time of their life.
And so what we really want is a more compassionate system.
Andy: You mentioned the, in your speech, Patrick, the, editorial support that
you'd had, and I think, it's always worth talking about that a little bit.
I wonder if you'd mind saying a bit more about that now.
Patrick: I think when I first came to the news session with the story,
they thought this was a great story.
They recognized.
To the injustice.
And I think lots of people think that carers don't matter who are carers,
they're just basically hundreds of thousands, if not millions of mainly
middle aged women who look after their loved ones, whose lives are basically an
act of love to their family and their sons and their daughters and their partners.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking like a journalist is
always thinking, is this a story?
And the more and more we did it, the more I thought this is an amazing story.
And to, and thanks to my colleagues.
Who saw this and put a lot of resource and time and energy and enthusiasm behind it.
They backed us at every stage.
They cleared the front page every now and then for us to do a story.
They gave us space inside.
We went on the podcast, they backed it from start to finish.
And I have to say, that was a great judgment on their part.
Andy: I don't even need to ask this.
Is there more to come on this story?
Are you working on whatever's next in terms of the carer's allowance scandal?
Josh: Yeah, we're absolutely focused on this, dead set.
what has been shown by previous pole foot winners is that you've
just got to hold your nerve.
And all of those shortlisted tonight have held their nerve against
official denial, official obfuscation.
And that doesn't put us off.
We'll keep going This.
Award, I hope, will really turbocharge, our investigation, put it in the public
spotlight even more than it is and, power us onto proper change in government.
Patrick: The main reason why this story happened, and it worked and
it made so many people angry at the unfairness, was that lots of people,
unpaid carers, not least spoke to us, and they were incredibly brave.
Most of them were very ashamed.
End of what they've done, they thought it was their fault.
they thought no one was listening to them and would listen to them,
and they were just gonna take their punishment beating and their bravery
in talking to us was incredible.
And I think both of us would say that if anything, this award
is dedicated to unpaid carers.
Andy: So that's it from this year's Paul Foot Award.
We will be back again next year with another Paul Foot Award, but we'll
also be back again tomorrow with another regular episode of Patient.
Before tune in.
It's gonna be great fun.
We'll see you then.
Thanks to you for listening and as always, to Matt Hill of
breathing, Cordio for producing.
Bye for now.