Rat up a Drainpipe award: Shortlist revealed

The shortlist has been announced for the 2010 Bevins Prize for outstanding investigative journalism – the 'Rat up a Drainpipe' award.

The prize is awarded in honour of Anthony Bevins, the leading political journalist who regularly researched and broke otherwise untouched stories. The award was set up in 2008 to encourage and promote Bevins’ relentless pursuit of truth.

This year’s shortlisted entries are:

• David Cohen for his investigation into paupers’ graves which exposed the extent to which certain London boroughs were burying dead children in collective graves. (Evening Standard);
• Sean O’Neil and David Brown investigated the child sex abuse scandal centred on the Benedictine Monastery and St Benedict's school, West London (The Times).
• Nick Davies reported on the “Dark Arts” of phone-tapping (The Guardian).
• Clare Sambrook investigating the detention of children in the immigration system ran a series of articles on openDemocracy.net to highlight the extent to which children were being forcibly detained leading to a review of policy. (opendemoctracy.net)
• Jerome Starkey revealed how a covert forces attack in a village in Afghanistan ended in civilian casualties that were then covered up: Jerome's pieces led to a senior US officer visiting the village to present an apology. (The Times).

The winner will be announced in November.

• Last year’s prize was awarded to Paul Lewis of the Guardian for his stories about the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 riots, revealing that he died after being struck from behind by a police officer.