Looking back on the impact of our work, it’s been an incredible year for TBIJ. We’ve prompted major investigations into tax cheating and fraud, as well as charges against lawyers and company directors. We’ve seen kids banned from dodgy chatbots, court evidence overturned, scam networks raided by police and world leaders put under pressure over the climate crisis.

We were recognised with a few awards too, including last week’s British Journalism Award – an incredible achievement for a small team like ours going up against the big guys.

And it’s all possible because of our supporters. You can help make next year even better, bringing more bad guys to account, lifting the lid on dodgy corporations and finding out who is financing extremism.

As Christmas is fast approaching, I have something that’s a bit of a rarity in our line of work – a genuine feelgood story. 

Our family courts reporter Hannah Summers has reported on the case of a mother and child who are finally being reunited on Christmas Day after six years of separation.

The boy (who we can’t name) was removed without warning just before Christmas 2019, his presents still wrapped under the Christmas tree. His mother told Hannah: “He never got to open them. We didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.”

The separation came after the boy’s father won a custody battle in which a so-called “expert” psychologist had told a family court that the mum had turned the boy against him – something known as “parental alienation”.

This is not an isolated case. We’ve been writing extensively about how court-appointed experts have been diagnosing parental alienation in family court cases for years. The diagnosis is now recognised as a harmful pseudoscience that can be used to discredit claims of domestic abuse.

One of these experts is Melanie Gill, who we found had problematic biases that undermine her position as an expert witness. Gill insists that her specialist training and expertise means she’s well-qualified to act as a court witness. And she’s been doing so for 15 years, giving evidence in up to 200 family court cases, frequently diagnosing parental alienation.

The Victims Commissioner for England and Wales now wants all of Gill’s cases reviewed urgently.

Meanwhile, the boy ran away from his father’s home last month and hired his own lawyer. He also went to see his mum. He wasn’t allowed to stay, but now has won the right to see her for Christmas. In the story, Hannah writes what a special moment it was, seeing him after so long.

Give the gift of top-class journalism this Christmas

If you’re like me and still haven’t sorted out all of your Christmas shopping, why not think about a Bureau Insider gift membership for your friends or family? You can give as much or as little as you want, and it helps support the most rigorous journalism around. 

Our work uncovers the stories that reveal how the world really works – and strives to make positive change.

Ed’s time investigating in the BVI

Following his brilliant long read on the British Virgin Islands, this week Ed offered the inside scoop on his time reporting on the Caribbean archipelago – and what it’s like investigating a global hub of rule breaking and corruption.

So many bribery scandals I’ve looked into over the years have led through the BVI, usually in the shape of a company whose ownership you can’t trace. And for all the fuss the UK government makes about wanting to crack down on dark money, it’s unable to get the BVI to promote an open company ownership register – a huge step towards transparency. 

Ed went to the BVI to find out how a cocaine-smuggling scandal links to the bigger corruption question. I knew he’d come back with a notebook full of insights and observations. The result is a story that will give you an understanding of the relationship between the UK and the BVI that you won’t find anywhere else.

This is how he begins:

In early May, the streets of Road Town, the capital of the British Virgin Islands, were eerily quiet. The tourism season had finished, and the dense, humid air signalled that hurricane season was approaching.

Entering a small, close-knit territory isn’t easy when you’re reporting on a cocaine conspiracy that landed the territory’s premier in jail. Locals aren’t quite sure what you’re doing there. If you’re trying to avoid somebody, good luck. Sources, fearful of being seen speaking to an outsider, suggest remote locations to meet.

But the smallness of the place is not just an issue for visiting reporters – the longer I spent there, the more I felt it was a central reason for the bruising years of corruption and crime the territory has suffered.

Our reporting got the UK investigating dodgy cancer drugs

At 22, Anne Ranasinghe had already made it through leukaemia with a positive outlook. She graduated with a master’s, landed a job at a non-profit and goes climbing regularly. But when she was just three years old, Anne had to go through two years of chemotherapy. Her father Neil had absolute faith the treatment would work. 

After all, our medicines are covered by one of the world’s best regulators, the MHRA.

But earlier this year we uncovered something pretty worrying. Poor-quality cancer drugs – including methotrexate, which Anne was treated with – had found their way to more than 100 countries. That includes the UK, which means it was right under the nose of the MHRA.

Shereen Nabhani-Gebara, an oncology professor and chair of the British Oncology Pharmacy Association, was furious that the dodgy drugs could get to cancer patients. “It just makes my blood boil,” she told us. “In my head, nothing gets past the MHRA.”

So she ended up writing to the MHRA after reading our investigation to ask them to look into what happened to the drugs. And guess what, they responded to say they would. That’s a pretty great outcome of the reporting. We’ll obviously keep an eye on what the MHRA finds and keep you in the know.