Andrew Mark Norfolk[1] (born c. 1965) is a British journalist and chief investigative reporter forThe Times.[2] Norfolk became known in 2011 for his reporting on theRotherham child sexual exploitation scandal and other cases ofon-street child grooming. He won both thePaul Foot Award andOrwell Prize for his work, and was named 2014 Journalist of the Year.[3][4][5]
After attendingKent College, Canterbury, andAshville College, Harrogate, both independent schools, Norfolk studied English atDurham University, where he was sports editor ofPalatinate, the university newspaper.[2] He also represented the university atfield hockey and was a substitute in the 1985 University Athletic Union final againstExeter University.[6] A member ofHild Bede College, Norfolk graduated in 1987.[1]
After graduating, Norfolk worked as a reporter with theScarborough Evening News in 1989, where he was aNational Union of Journalists rep. He became a reporter for theYorkshire Post in 1995, a reporter forThe Times in 2000, north-east correspondent forThe Times in 2002, and the newspaper's chief investigative reporter in 2012.[2]
In 2010 Norfolk began investigating the on-street grooming of girls inthe Midlands andnorthern England, largely by British-Pakistani men, and from January 2011[7] he produced a series of reports that triggered several formal inquiries. He had known about the grooming earlier becauseAnn Cryer, the MP forKeighley, had publicly raised concerns about the abuse of two girls.[8]
As a result of this work, he won thePaul Foot Award for investigative journalism in February 2013; the judges said his stories had "prompted two government-ordered inquiries, a parliamentary inquiry and a new national action plan on child sexual exploitation".[3] In May that year, he shared theOrwell Prize with Tom Bergin of Reuters,[4] and in December 2014 he was named Journalist of the Year by the British Journalism Awards.[5]
In August 2017The Times published an article by Norfolk headlined "Christian child forced into Muslim foster care" about a foster placement in theLondon Borough of Tower Hamlets.[9] The borough council complained to theIndependent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which ruled that the story was riddled with inaccuracies. IPSO requiredThe Times to run the ruling in the front page of its print edition and in its online edition.[10][11][12] Norfolk has since said that with hindsight, he would not write the story again.[13]
Norfolk, Andrew (5 January 2011). "Some of these men have children the same age; they are bad apples".The Times. No. 70148. p. 6.
Grierson, Jamie (2 September 2017)."Muslim fostering row: Times journalist defends story".The Guardian.