The Independent’s Rebecca Thomas has been named Health Journalist of the Year at the Press Awards 2026 for her investigation into a rapist NHS mental health nurse who was allowed to continue treating vulnerable patients for more than a year after police warned he was a suspect. It is the second consecutive year she has won the category.
The nurse who should have been stopped
John Chukwunonso Iwuh, a registered nurse, was convicted of rape and voyeurism on 14 May 2025 and sentenced to eight years for rape with a concurrent 18 months for voyeurism on 29 August 2025. The attack happened on 8 June 2022 after he met his victim on the dating app Hinge. The Metropolitan Police contacted the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) about Iwuh in September 2022 — shortly after his arrest — yet the regulator did not open a formal investigation until October 2023 and did not suspend him until November 2023, after he had been charged.
That delay allowed Iwuh to keep working with patients at two NHS trusts, Central and North West London Foundation Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Foundation Trust, for over a year while the criminal investigation was ongoing. The NMC has since acknowledged it “could – and should – have acted faster”.
Rebecca Thomas’s reporting exposed the gaps in the regulator’s system, prompting both hospitals to launch independent reviews. The Metropolitan Police subsequently opened a fresh probe after further potential victims came forward. Officers found nearly 11,000 contacts on Iwuh’s phone, many saved with women’s names and dating app identifiers. During sentencing, it emerged that he was facing four other allegations — three involving rape — related to separate victims and incidents in 2007, 2019 and 2022.
Thomas has been praised by Press Awards judges for “relentlessly pursuing whistleblower concerns about the Nursing and Midwifery Council” and consistently highlighting safeguarding failures by healthcare services. Her investigations into the NMC have contributed to calls for a parliamentary inquiry. An independent review by Nazir Afzal KC found systemic issues, including a failure to act on serious allegations and a “toxic and dysfunctional culture” within the regulator.
Deaths at The Children’s Trust
Thomas was also recognised for her reporting on three disabled children who died in similar circumstances at The Children’s Trust, a UK charity for children with brain injury based in Tadworth, Surrey. In May 2022 a coroner criticised the charity over the death of five-year-old Connor Wellsted in 2017, caused by “entrapment by a loose cot bumper”, and cited a “lack of transparency”. In October 2024, following the death of another child, Mia Gauci-Lamport, the same coroner raised concerns about inadequate overnight monitoring, medical care and senior management issues, noting these had been flagged previously in the Connor Wellsted case.
In December 2024, England’s Health Ombudsman raised concerns that the Care Quality Commission had not properly investigated allegations of a “cover-up” by The Children’s Trust relating to the 2017 death. The Ombudsman highlighted the charity’s failure to acknowledge a lack of transparency or to properly investigate the death. Thomas’s reporting on these failings led police to launch a fresh probe into one of the deaths.
A life changed: Nicholas Thornton
Judges also cited Thomas’s work on the case of Nicholas Thornton, an autistic man who had been living in unsuitable care homes and hospitals for a decade. Her “dogged reporting” on his experience eventually saw him rehoused in the community after a ten-year fight. Thornton has since moved into his own home and regained his ability to speak. The judges commended Ms Thomas for her ability to “expose wrongdoing and create real-life change” with her journalism.
Broader recognition for The Independent
Thomas’s win follows a series of accolades. She was named Health Journalist of the Year at the Press Awards 2025, won the health and life sciences category at the British Journalism Awards in December 2024 — having also won the same category in 2022 for her coverage of the A&E crisis — and took the Medical Journalists’ Association mental health story of the year for an 18-month investigation into sexual abuse in NHS hospitals, a joint project with Sky News. She was also shortlisted for the Paul Foot Awards in 2024 for campaigning journalism.
At the 2026 Press Awards, The Independent’s chief international correspondent Bel Trew was shortlisted as foreign reporter of the year, global travel editor Annabel Grossman as travel journalist of the year, and the publication’s Brick by Brick campaign — which raised funds to build two houses for women fleeing domestic abuse — was shortlisted for campaign of the year.