David Woode
The Times
As Metropolitan Police officers reveal they "aren't confident" using stop and search for fear of attracting complaints, David combined his personal and professional experiences to produce an agenda-setting cover story for The Times Magazine.
In his first entry, David dispassionately recounted his life in stop and search and detailed the psychological effect of being repeatedly stopped. He unpicked data, scrutinised police-approved lines and drew on his crime reporting to question the efficacy of the tactic. Interviews with policing leaders and young people working to remedy community mistrust helped David present readers with a fresh perspective. The feature attracted hundreds of thousands of impressions on social media and strong engagement on the Times’ website and digital channels – with readers saying the article challenged their attitudes towards the topic.
David demonstrated sensitive interviewing and expertise in court reporting in his second submission about a teenager whose murder unfolded in the shadow of a landmark occasion in British history.
Renell Charles, 16, was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack by a teenage boy whom he had never met as he left school in Walthamstow, east London in May 2023. He died on the eve of the King’s coronation as the world's media gathered in the capital.
David gained the trust of Renell's family and tracked the case through the courts. The Times successfully overturned reporting restrictions to identify Myglor Yambuya as the killer and tell the story of the murder. His exclusive interview with Renell’s mother after Yambuya, now 18, was detained for life conveyed a parent's heartbreak after her child left for school and never returned home — a bleak reality of Britain's knife crime crisis.
In his final entry, David gained unique insight into the early life of Chris Kaba — an unarmed man fatally shot by a Met marksman in September 2022 — through the eyes of his primary school teacher.
When Kaba’s life of gangs and guns was revealed following Martyn Blake's acquittal of murder, the Conservative MP Robert Jenrick said, "No one should mourn him."
Through his contacts in the community, David secured an exclusive interview with Kaba's former teacher. She spoke of feeling helpless and wondered what more she could have done to change his trajectory. Those who taught Kaba as a child have mourned him, she said in response to Jenrick’s claim. David's acute understanding of the social pressures facing young black males helped him draw out lucid anecdotes from the teacher, who described how eight-year-old boys were captivated when gang culture encroached on the playground.
The interview exemplified David's tenacity to go beyond the narrative and help readers understand the complex triggers of criminality.