Lucy Johnston (born 1969) is a British journalist, currently health editor of the '' Sunday Express'', and previously a staff reporter and investigative journalist for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

''. Johnston was a member of the original editorial team of ''

The Big Issue ''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individ ...

'' in 1992. She has become known for her investigative articles on London's drug culture, deaths in police custody, animal research, and the pharmaceutical industry, and for her campaigns to improve healthcare provision to the elderly and mentally ill.

Education and career

Johnston was educated at

Culford School Culford School is a co-educational independent day and boarding school for pupils age 1-18 in the village of Culford, miles north of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, England. The headmaster is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Con ...

in Bury St Edmunds. She moved to London in 1992 to work as a volunteer for ''The Big Issue'', becoming a reporter with the newspaper's original editorial team, before working her way up to news editor, then assistant editor. She was known from then until 1996 for several investigative pieces, including on deaths in police custody and street drugs in London.Swithinbank, Tessa
''Coming Up from the Streets: The Story of The Big Issue''
Earthscan, 2001, pp. 51, 70, 74, 96, 258. *Clifton, Helen
"Still coming up from the streets"
''The Journalist'', June/July 2011, p. 14. *Rogers, Simon and Brooks, Xan
"A decade on the streets"
''The Guardian'', 10 September 2001. Tessa Swithinbank writes that Johnston was headhunted by ''The Observer'' in 1996 as a result of her ability to work with the kinds of sources few journalists were able to access. After several years with ''The Observer'' as a staff reporter, she joined the ''Sunday Express'' investigations team in 2001, later becoming health editor. She has conducted undercover investigations for the newspaper, including one in 2001 where she took a job as a care assistant in Lynde House, a nursing home owned by Westminster Health Care, which was headed by

Chai Patel Chaitanya Patel (born 14 September 1954) is a British doctor, businessman and philanthropist. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, he obtained medical qualifications at the University of Southampton in 1979 and previously worked in the National He ...

. Her story was highly critical of the treatment the elderly residents were receiving; Patel, at the time a government adviser on care of the elderly, later sold the company and resigned from his government post. She has also campaigned in the ''Express'' to highlight the treatment of people with mental-health problems, and has written articles opposing the requirement that pensioners pay for medical treatment while in nursing homes.

Reception

Johnston won a commendation in 1998 from the Natali Prize for Journalism, awarded by the International Federation of Journalists, for "Barred from animals' kingdom," an article in ''The Observer'' on the conflict over land rights in northern Tanzania between the Maasai people and the establishment of the

Mkomazi National Park Mkomazi National Park is located in northeastern Tanzania on the Kenyan border, in Kilimanjaro Region and Tanga Region. It was established as a game reserve in 1951 and upgraded to a national park in 2006. The park covers over , and is dominate ...

, a conservation area for animals. In 2001 she and a colleague, Jonathan Calvert, won a

Genesis Award The Genesis Awards are awarded annually by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to individuals in the major news and entertainment media for producing outstanding works which raise public awareness of animal issues. Presented by the HSUS ...

from the

Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. ...

for a ''Daily Express'' article, "Terrible despair of animals cut up in name of research," on

xenotransplantation Xenotransplantation (''xenos-'' from the Greek meaning "foreign" or strange), or heterologous transplant, is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenograft ...

experiments conducted by Imutran and

Huntingdon Life Sciences Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest ...

. Johnston was shortlisted that year for a "Journalist of the Year" award by Mind, the mental-health charity, and in 2012 the ''Sunday Express'' won Mind's "Making a difference award" for its "Crusade for Better Mental Health" campaign, with the work of Johnston and a colleague, Ted Jeory, highlighted in the citation. An article by Johnston in the ''Sunday Express'' that was critical of the cervical cancer vaccine,

Cervarix Cervarix is a vaccine against certain types of cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV). Cervarix is designed to prevent infection from HPV types 16 and 18, that cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases. These types also cause most HPV-induced ...

, was the subject of a complaint to the

Press Complaints Commission The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Inde ...

in 2009. The newspaper published a correction and apology.Goldacre, Ben
"Cancer jab fantasy closes down a debate"
''The Guardian'', 10 October 2009. *Greenslade, Rod
"Sunday Express cancer jab story denied by expert"
''The Guardian'', 10 October 2009.

Press Complaints Commission, undated, accessed 12 June 2012.

Selected works

*"People dying in police custody," ''The Big Issue'', No. 151, 9 October 1995. *"Attacked, robbed, pelted, abused: Big Issue sellers run the gauntlet," ''The Observer'', 3 January 1996. *"Barred from animals' kingdom," ''The Observer'', 6 April 1997. *with John Sweeney ''et al''
"'Spare the princes from Diana's fate'"
''The Observer'', 7 September 1997. *"Hanif and the Spurned Woman," ''The Observer'', 10 May 1998.
"Fruit growers face the final crunch"
''The Observer'', 10 January 1999. *with Jonathan Calvert. "Terrible despair of animals cut up in name of research," ''Daily Express'', 21 September 2000

. *"Pet Food Cruelty Exposed," ''Sunday Express'', 27 May 2001

.
"Secret evidence that could have saved Sally Clark"
''Sunday Express'', 8 July 2007.
"One person dying every hour from superbug"
''Sunday Express'', 27 April 2008.
"NHS whistleblower: 'Poor surgeons cause death'"
''Sunday Express'', 21 June 2009.
"Starving Britain"
''Sunday Express'', 27 November 2011.

Education and career

Reception

Selected works

See also

References

Further reading