Sean O'Neill

Sean O’Neill was The Times’s crime and security editor and then chief reporter before moving to a senior writer role with freedom to write across the title. He contributes to news, arts and comment but his Times magazine features have been his standout work this year.

The three pieces chosen to support Sean’s entry reflect the clarity and power of his writing.

At the peak of interest in the Netflix series Baby Reindeer, Sean met John from west London who has been stalked by a woman for 27 years. John was in his early 30s when he was introduced to Maria and she has been obsessed with him ever since: following him, writing countless letters, banging on his windows, waiting for him when he returns from work.

She has been convicted 15 times of breaching court orders to stay away but keeps turning up. “She’s like the seasons,” John tells Sean. “She just comes round again and again and again”.

The stalking campaign shattered John’s confidence, wrecked his job prospects and undermined his ability to maintain stable relationships. To this day, his voice has never been heard in court: “It feels like there is no one out there who understands how this has mentally and physically broken me.”

John said the publication of the interview was the first time he felt his experience had been recognised.

Another compelling interview focused on Bertrand Monnet, a French professor of business studies who specialises in investigating and teaching his students about the organised crime economy.

Monnet described his unique research methods: spending months alongside Mexican drug cartels, Somali pirates and Italian mafioso. He recounted the terrifying day he was kidnapped, beaten and came close to death when the Brazilian mafia, the Primeiro Comando da Capital, thought he was a police spy.

Monnet, who has two teenage children, revealed the experience made him seek counselling for the first time: “It’s important not to consider yourself a superman”.

Sean’s most powerful feature was his searing, personal account of the coroner’s inquest into the death aged 27 of his daughter Maeve from the poorly understood disease myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). He kept a journal during the inquest process. It was meant to be a way of letting off steam but became a powerful account of his battle with the NHS for answers and the ordeal of navigating an inquest system that is supposed to have bereaved families at its heart but is actually stacked against them.

On July 24 he wrote: “The hospital has three lawyers sitting behind me today (one in-house, two external) but there is no publicly funded provision for families. There are 6,600 pages of evidence to examine and digest”.

Then on August 1 he writes: “My turn to give evidence today. The coroner asks me to read the statement I wrote almost three years ago. But I physically can’t. My throat constricts and I struggle to breathe, never mind speak.”