National honour for YP investigative journalist

A series of exposes on misspending and misconduct by senior police officers and officials saw Waugh pick up the runner-up prize for the 2012 Paul Foot Award from a shortlist dominated by reporters from national newspapers.

The annual award recognises excellence in investigative reporting and is in memory of Paul Foot who was renowned for his work for Private Eye, the Daily Mirror and The Guardian.

Waugh’s work focused on a series of scandals involving the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the chief officers’ unofficial ‘trade union’ (CPOSA) and Cleveland Police.

ACPO was revealed to have been operating a ‘jobs for the boys’ consultancy network involving lucrative contracts given to former chief officers while CPOSA was shown to be benefiting from huge amounts of public money used by chief officers to fight disciplinary cases.

The investigation into Cleveland Police’s hierarchy revealed a raft of misspending on credit cards, foreign trips and mobile phone bills.

The award was won by former Yorkshire Post reporter Andrew Norfolk for a long-running Times investigation into child grooming by gangs of men.

A Special Campaign Award went to the Daily Mail’s Stephen Wright for 15 years of reporting on the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation.

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye which jointly sponsors the award with The Guardian, said: “The Foot awards this year are a powerful post-Leveson riposte to all those who want to think only the worst of journalists. The shortlist celebrates those whose great skill is to make the public really interested in what is really in the public interest.”