About Charles...

Shoebury Paedophile Ring

Charles's five-year (and counting) investigation into the cover-up of a historic paedophile ring has been nominated for the Paul Foot Award, won the Ray Fitzwalter Award and spawned a critically acclaimed documentary podcast series.

In early 2015, Charles was approached by whistleblowers who had worked on a historic paedophile ring investigation in Shoebury, Essex. They claimed that in 1989, local agencies had found evidence that two men were running a sprawling paedophile ring from Southend-on-Sea.

However, they told Charles that police only charged the two ringleaders and never brought any of the other abusers to book. The two ringleaders were given extremely generous plea bargains, whilst the child victims were smeared by the court system and offered no proper aftercare, causing many to self-harm, slip into drug addiction, become homeless and even die from suicides and overdoses.

Within a year, Charles's digging forced Essex Police to launch a formal review into its handling of the historic case. Months later, his reporting led to a brand new police investigation. In late 2017, further reporting sparked a second new police probe.

In 2018, he uncovered evidence that the two ringleaders had been affiliated with a member of the notorious 'Dirty Dozen' paedophile gang, which was responsible for the killings of three young boys - Jason Swift, Mark Tildesley and Barry Lewis.

Then, in early 2019, he found and rescued a pile of historic paperwork, days before it was due to be burned, which contained evidence that one of the two ringleaders had been a registered police informant.

Years of legal battles with public bodies - including police forces, local authorities and central government departments - have led to a string of revelations about failures in the case, including the discovery that the sweetheart deal given to one of the Shoebury ringleaders had freed him to commit at least 15 further sexual offences.

Charles's reporting on the case has prompted stories by the BBC, ITV, MailOnline, the Mail on Sunday, the Mirror and Private Eye - as well as media industry publications like PressGazette, HoldTheFrontPage and the Society of Editors newsletter.

Between 2016 and 2020, his work on the story won nine national journalism awards and commendations. He was declared a 'local hero' at the British Journalism Awards, named as the UK's best weekly newspaper reporter in 2018, and his stories won the Society of Editors' Weekly Newspaper Campaign of the Year award in 2019. He won the 2018 Ray Fitzwalter Award and was shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award in 2020.

In July 2020, Charles wrote and presented a podcast on the case for Archant Investigations Unit, called Unfinished: Shoebury's Lost Boys. The series featured interviews with charity workers, health workers, police sources and victims - and revealed shocking failures in the more recent police investigations, as well as the historic one.

The Mail on Sunday called the series 'brilliant', whilst PressGazette chose it as one of the top journalism podcasts of 2020.    

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