from the Sunday Times Magazine in home page posts
Adolf Beck
Part One – The Moment His Life Changed
oooo May, 2026 oooo
“Mr Beck’s case is the origin story of misidentification leading to wrongful conviction. His experience is really in a league of its own, for a number of reasons, not least among them the resilience and determination of the accused. Mr Beck was identified as a fraudster by multiple women complainants – so many in fact that it’s hard to keep count, or make sense of how that happened.”
Constance
A new report takes a compassionate view of the case of Constance Marten & Mark Gordon. Could a different approach have saved baby Victoria?
oooo April, 2026 oooo
“I had followed the case carefully and found it disconcerting. I was not convinced the public interest required a trial – two trials, in fact, for two people who had suffered the loss of a baby, even in circumstances where their actions must have contributed to the baby’s death. There was something wrong about the case and the manner in which it was conducted; there was something missing from the trial and the narrative that surrounded the broader picture of events.”
Bulger
“Bad” children and how (not) to write about them
oooo March, 2026 oooo
“I have lived with the case for more than three decades. I have since written hundreds of thousands of words on a variety of subjects, but I don’t suppose more than a day or two has ever passed when I have not thought about it.”
Bamber
oooo March, 2026 oooo
“Although he has complained bitterly about the CCRC, it represents Bamber’s only hope of freedom. He continues to claim his sister, Sheila shot the family and then herself. In his version, he was not there at the scene and played no part in what happened. He only called the police, he said, (thought notably not himself using 999), because his father called him from the farm, to say his sister had “gone berserk with a gun”. The only evidence that call happened is the testimony of Bamber himself.”
Lucy Letby
oooo March, 2026 oooo
“I do not know if Lucy Letby is (a) innocent or (b) the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but I do believe it will not be as easy to overturn her convictions as a lot of pro-Letby Twitter/X posters and others seem to think. The hurdles are high and many. Not least, the fact of her convictions. A jury heard all the evidence and reached its verdicts. Convictions can of course be quashed, but that is not meant to be – and indeed, is not – an easy process.”
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The Drowning Of Paula Leeson
C5 documentary April 30, 2025
Consultant and contributor
Has Anybody Seen George Powell?
The Independent Apr 19, 2025
The story behind the BBC podcast “Fool’s Gold
Fool’s Gold
when metal detectorists went rogue…
…and it all went horribly wrong
A new eight part podcast
based on my original article in
The Sunday Times Magazine
Lucy Letby
The Independent February 09 2025
Nameless Horror
The Sunday Times Magazine May 19, 2002
Original reporting on the case of “Adam”
The Unsolved Murder of “Adam”
The Londoner January 17, 2025
Letby
The Independent December 19, 2024
Bamber
The Independent August 01, 2024
Lucy Letby
The Independent July 24, 2024
naming
Proof magazine April 15, 2024
Fool’s Gold
The Sunday Times Magazine Feb 04, 2024
The discovery of the Herefordshire Hoard should have made two Welsh treasure-hunters a fortune. So what went wrong?
“After digging up the treasure they could have made history — and themselves millionaires — but unaccountably they did the wrong thing. Not once, but over and over again, drawing others into their deceit and turning this sorry Norse saga into a modern morality tale.”
article
The Independent Jan 25, 2024
podcast
Contributor
BBC podcast January 2024
article
The Independent Jan 08, 2024
podcast
Stories Of Our Times podcast
The Boy Who Killed James Bulger
contributor
Dec 15, 2023
article
The Independent Dec 13, 2023
podcast
Logroll: The NonFiction Podcast
with Andrew Hankinson
David James Smith: The Sleep Of Reason
Dec 08, 2023
home
The Independent Nov 03, 2023
Article
The Independent Oct 21, 2023
Contributor:
Contributor Channel 5 documentary
September 2023
Tom
FOR LOVE NOT MONEY
The Sunday Times Magazine
Captain Tom’s charity walk raised £38.9 million for the NHS. Now the foundation set up by his family is being investigated over its handling of his legacy.They speak to David James Smith
And then the personal hate starts for her too. “I was called devious, a shrew, all those words we use because we are still suspicious of successful women. Words used to demonise.” She doubts she would have received such abuse if she were a son of Tom. “I was [accused of] making him do it, I was cattle-prodding him, I was treating him abysmally and forcing him into it.”
July 17, 2022
SRS
DEATH OF A BARONET
The Sunday Times Magazine
Sir Richard Sutton, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, was stabbed to death by his partner’s son last year. Tom, an aspiring artist, knifed his mother too. What drove him? David James Smith explores his troubled family past.
“The judge was understandably damning of Tom’s actions, which were he said ‘grotesquely disproportionate’ to the offending remark made by his mother. It could not be a clearer case of guilt. So I was surprised to discover, during and after the trial, that Tom has retained the compassion and support of many people who have known his family for years, in some cases since long before he was born. They believe the seeds of his actions were sown deep in the past.”
January 16, 2022
Supper With The Crippens
SUPPER WITH THE CRIPPENS
available for the first time as an audiobook on Audible
also in a new paperback edition in bookshops and on Amazon
Let Us Prey
LET US PREY
a true story of deception and murder
David’s new book about the Maids Moreton murder case and the uniquely wicked behaviour of the perpetrator Ben Field. An Audible Original exclusive.
The Bambers: Murder At White House Farm
The Bambers: Murder at the Farm
Contributor to four-part documentary series on Sky
September, 2021
Deceit
Deceit on Channel 4
“A drama exposes the psychological profiling that led to a tragic mistake in the search for Rachel Nickell’s killer in 1992, says David James Smith”
Article in The Sunday Times Culture August 8, 2021
You’ve Got Jail!
You’ve Got Jail!
The Sunday Times Magazine
April 11, 2021
SPECIAL REPORT: The EncroChat bust: how police hacked the secret gangster messaging network. It was the ‘uncrackable’ encrypted phone system that enabled criminals to plot with impunity — or so they thought. David James Smith reports on one of the biggest organised crime busts in history
The Sleep of Reason – The James Bulger Case
The Sleep Of Reason
Listen to the new audio edition, only on Audible
“The most harrowing, heartbreaking and defining account of the murder, its aftermath and legacy” – David Peace
The Virus of the Mind
The Virus of the Mind
The Sunday Times Magazine
December 6, 2020
“Another nurse was holding that patient’s hand as they slipped away and when Taylor turned to look she saw the monitor was off, indicating death. This meant the filter the deceased patient had been using was now available and Taylor took it for her severely sick patient, in the hope of keeping them alive; but at 7.55pm, five minutes before her shift ended, that patient died too.”
Locked Up in Lockdown
Locked Up in Lockdown
The Sunday Times Magazine
November 8, 2020
“I was the first journalist allowed inside a prison since lockdown.. I walked through wings and along landings, spoke with prisoners in their cells and learnt first-hand their fears and frustrations, hearing many moving stories of resilience and struggle.”
The Murderer and the Parole Board
The Murderer and the Parole Board
May 24, 2020
“All eyes were on the Prisoner. I noted that his daughter’s name was tattooed on his arm and couldn’t help wondering if he’d had it done before or after he murdered her mother.”
A Stabbing Tragedy in Manchester
A Stabbing Tragedy in Manchester
The Sunday Times Magazine
October 6, 2019
“They were two sides of the same terrible event, divided by what had happened and yet inextricably bound together. They have never spoken to each other. They all grieved and broke down during our meetings. I felt deeply sorry for every one of them. The case has laid bare the agonising trauma of teenagers with knives. Lives lost and lives changed for ever. It involves three families, three sets of parents who did not know that knives had become part of their children’s world.”
Inside Feltham
Inside Feltham
The Sunday Times Magazine
June 09, 2019
“Meet Daniel — as I did recently — in Feltham. He is a young man with a history of violence. Pull up a chair, sit close, no need to be alarmed. He has served five years of a nine-year sentence — with six years of licence still to come on account of his past dangerousness. No, really, you’ll be fine.
‘What did you do?’ I ask.
‘Kidnapping, GBH [grievous bodily harm], false imprisonment’.”
Jill Dando – The 20 Year Mystery ITV film
Jill Dando – The 20 Year Mystery ITV film
news coverage
Contributor
April 25, 2019
Who Killed Jill Dando?
Who Killed Jill Dando? 20 Years On…
The Sunday Times Magazine
April 14, 2019
“The only sound was a scream, heard by a neighbour — not a worrying scream, perhaps a scream of surprise, someone playing a joke. That was it, at the moment of her death on April 26, 1999. That was all.”
The Murder of Jill Dando BBC documentary
The Murder of Jill Dando BBC film
BBC iPlayer
Contributor
April 2, 2019
James Bulger – Anniversary of a Tragedy
James Bulger – Anniversary of a Tragedy
The Sunday Times Magazine
January 21, 2018
“I have never quite left Liverpool, however, and have always returned. There was, of course, an unanswered question — why? Why did they do it? No one really knows the answer, even now. Probably not even the “boys” themselves.”
The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case new edition
The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case
“The most harrowing, heartbreaking and defining account of the murder, its aftermath and legacy” – David Peace.
Buy the book and read the latest customer reviews at Amazon UK
Commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission
www.ccrc.gov.uk @ccrcupdate
2013-2018
Job Centres in Prisons
Job Centres in Prisons
The Sunday Times Magazine
March 25, 2018
“If there was a single transforming moment for Riz, it was that meeting with Claire Nicol in the jobcentre — not on a high street, but inside a prison, HMP Norwich, where he was in the final months of a long sentence for serious violent crimes. The centre is part of a new Gateway to Employment scheme, which aims to get ex-prisoners into work.”
British Press Awards 2012
Feature Writer of the Year
British Press Awards 2012
Awarding David the title for the second consecutive year, the judges said: “His pieces have an unrivalled scope and ambition. He gets to the heart of difficult subjects and consistently provides a definitive account…”
2012 Orwell Prize
2012 Orwell Prize
Shortlisted in the 2012 Orwell Prize for Journalism.
http://theorwellprize.co.uk/shortlists/filter/type-Journalism%20Prize/year-2012/
British Press Awards 2011
Feature Writer of the Year
British Press Awards 2011
“Thoroughly researched and stylishly written like an un-putdownable novel. “The Fallen”, his article on the forgotten ‘jumpers’ of 9/11, was a haunting and original piece of journalism that went viral in pirated form despite the restrictions of News International’s paywall”
Full list of awards
Foreign Press Association award
Foreign Press Association award
The Sunday Times Magazine writer David James Smith has won the prestigious Foreign Press Association award for Best Feature (print/web) for his cover story on the people who jumped from the Twin Towers on 9/11. His article was commended by the judges as “an exceptionally moving and compelling piece of reporting which offered a very different and fascinating take on 9/11”. The award category attracted a record number of entrants — among them the Sunday Times Moscow correspondent, Mark Franchetti, who was commended for his magazine feature revealing the diary of a Russian special forces killer in Chechnya
The Sleep Of Reason reissued
The Sleep Of Reason reissued
Buy from Amazon
Friday, February 12 1993. Two outwardly unremarkable ten-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, began their day playing truant and ended it running an errand for a local video shop. In between they abducted and killed the toddler James Bulger. The Sleep of Reason is the harrowing, sensitive, definitive account of this terrible crime and its consequences.
In a new Preface (which considers the re-arrest of Jon Venables in February 2010) David James Smith writes: ‘It is as true now as it was then that the murder has never really been explained and the motive for the crime remains a mystery. This book, the result of considerable research and a painstaking, sometimes distressing assembly of the facts, was my attempt to offer some insight and understanding.’
‘Surprisingly evocative, even moving … immensely valuable.’ The Times
‘Dramatic and disturbing.’ Anita Brookner, Observer
‘Compelling and compassionate.’ Times Educational Supplement
Out Now – Young Mandela
Young Mandela released in paperback in the UK
Buy from Amazon
‘From the beginning, I was encouraged by those around Mandela to write about him as a human being. Don’t write about the icon, came the plea, he knows he is not a saint, he has flaws and weaknesses just like everyone else.’
Nelson Mandela is the world’s greatest idol, universally recognised as a leader who symbolises moral authority. He has been mythologised as a flawless hero of the liberation struggle. But how exactly did his early personal and political life shape the triumphs to come? Read more
Out Now (us edition)
Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years
The US launch of the controversial human story behind the makings of the icon.
Available from:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Borders
IndieBound
Pre-Publication US Reviews…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What sets this biography apart is its author’s emphasis on Mandela’s character and associations in the development of his political career, from boyhood through the Rivonia Trial of 1963–1964; as well as the impact of politics on his personal life, from first wife Evelyn Mase–heretofore neglected in the historical record–to the “woman of his dreams,” Winnie Madikizela. No hagiography, Smith’s measured study qualifies, lends nuance to, and even contradicts the mythology around Mandela’s background and formative influences.
KIRKUS
A biography shepherded by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and written by an English journalist attains distance from and clarity on the life of the near-sainted South African leader…In this readable, well-calibrated account of Mandela’s early life, Smith attempts to get at the making of the revolutionary and leader, from an impoverished young law student to his rise through the ANC ranks, military training and authoring of “How to Be a Good Communist”…Smith vivifies the personalities and marshals the revolutionary events without overwhelming the reader.
