![[Freelance]](../gif/fl3H.png)
Duncan Campbell
1944-2025
DUNCAN CAMPBELL was a first-class reporter, a lovely writer, a concerned colleague, and of course a steadfast member of the union. More than that, Duncan embodied a certain approach to the trade that now seems precious: rigorous, non-competitive, honest and fair.
Duncan Campbell addresses a London Freelance Branch meeting
He earned respect as crime reporter at the Guardian, by changing the traditional approach. Crime reporters have generally been little more than mouthpieces for the police, picking their juiciest tip-offs to stir up blood-curdling tales of villainy. Duncan talked to the robbers as well as the cops and, following professional principle to respect confidentiality, could earn their trust as well.
As for the police, far from him bigging them up they came into conflict when a bunch of officers sued the Guardian over his reporting of their corruption. Routinely papers gave in to such cases and paid up – as the NUJ did for the Journalist in 1990 - but the paper defended Duncan, and won.
Following an education in his native Edinburgh and an adventurous life of travel, odd jobs and freelancing for magazines, he got to work on Time Out, a counter-cultural weekly listings magazine. It carried a new kind of journalism, London’s take on the drug-fuelled 1960s gonzo journalism of the USA. Duncan was news editor, which meant working to a new post-1968 news agenda.
Time Out reported new social movements - feminist, gay and green – and left-wing alternative politics. In 1977 he found himself at the centre of a national story, when a campaign against the deportation of two radical American journalists in Britain blew up into a sensational trial in which two others, and a former soldier working in intelligence, faced jail under the Official Secrets Act.
The two journalists on trial were Time Out reporter Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell – not the news editor but a freelance investigative reporter of the same name who specialised in electronic surveillance. This was the ABC Trial, named for the three defendants’ surnames (Aubrey, Berry Campbell – John Berry being the solider). Duncan was at the calm centre of all these storms as the main organiser of the defence campaign.
There was a second related case in which a dozen more journalists were tried for contempt over the naming of the principal military witness in the ABC trial, who was supposed to be anonymous. The accused included the then Journalist editor Ron Knowles and the NUJ itself. All were found guilty but acquitted on appeal. In ABC all three were also guilty but conditionally discharged.
The respect that journalists held for Duncan explains the remarkable fact that few if any wrote about his private life, that for the last 45 years his partner was the world-famous movie star Julie Christie. No-one as far as I know reported that they got married privately in 2005.
Duncan was cool, and this likewise explains the forbearance with which he accepted the considerably greater commentary among colleagues on the not very remarkable coincidence of there being two men with the same name, of the same generation, in the same line of business - and the same trade union branch. Duncan Campell is a very common Scottish name (Investigative freelance Duncan is from Dundee). Tragically now we only have the one.
I will never forget his support. He was truly incredible. I had been assigned to cover the far-right protests, but my team was denied access at the checkpoint because they did not have press cards, and I was really scared to cover alone. Just when things felt like they were falling apart, Duncan, who was there by coincidence, stepped in.
He didn’t hesitate - he insisted on joining me, and together, we crossed the police line. Despite the tension, the hostility, and the heavy intimidation we faced, he stood by me the whole time. He kept encouraging me gently, telling me to stay calm, to finish capturing the shots and complete the live stream.
More than anything, he made sure I got out safely and without trouble. We hadn’t seen each other much, but that day was remarkable to me, showing the kind of person he was: steadfast, compassionate and quietly heroic.
Not many years after I first met Duncan he was organising a strike for the principle that the cleaners at Time Out should continue to be paid the same as the editor. The strikers founded City Limits as a strike paper – cooler than Time Out had become.
I left the Guardian at the same time as Duncan – we both collected payoffs and had drinks that night.
On a cold November night in 2021 I left my office in Bush House and there was Duncan at the bus stop by the Royal Courts of Justice. He had been covering the appeal hearing of Texo Johnson, one of the "Stockwell Six", who in Duncan’s words was "the latest victim of the spectacularly corrupt British Transport Police sergeant Derek Ridgewell, who specialised in framing young black men, to be cleared".
Duncan was calmly pleased with the verdict, as he told me about the case on our shared journey home on the 26 bus. Duncan had been covering the story for a long time, and it was an honour to be with him at the moment when he’d just heard the news of Texo Johnson’s successful appeal.
He got off the bus and went home to write up the story, which I later read in the Byline Times.
I was touched when in 2022 Duncan and Julie Christie attended the Shireen Abu Akleh memorial service at St Brides church. He was one of the few mainstream journalists to attend. It was obvious that for all of his life Duncan cared deeply about fighting injustice which he did as rigorously and patiently as any lawyer through his thorough and excellent journalism. We will miss you, Duncan.
Further tributes
Certainly a loss. What a lovely tribute article. None of us will forget Duncan Campbell for many reasons.
Duncan was astonishingly generous and keen to support younger members in the branch. I initially welcomed his offer of delivering a branch training session for free when I was branch training officer, before covid. He was keen to share his knowledge, experience and tips on dealing with courts and the police with branch members who were interested. It took a while - post covid lockdowns - for him to deliver the excellent, well-attended session which Marian, now training officer, arranged last year. He delivered it with wit and professionalism - interspersed with anecdotes and staying around for individual chats with people who had specific queries. And was much appreciated by those who were there.
Such sad news, such a great man. A model of unshakeable integrity, intelligence & resilience. RIP Duncan, you've left a great legacy.
As a trainee reporter in London in the early 1980s I first had the privilege of meeting Duncan at a talk he gave in Camden in around 1984. He was already a legend for his part at in the ABC trial. However, by then he had left Time Out for City Limits, where he continued to write on the police and crime and to serve as a model for campaigning journalists. He will be sorely missed but his spirit lives on. A memory to cherish in these turbulent times.
Duncan was not only a brilliant journalist and author but also the most approachable colleague who did me an act of kindness not that long ago by supplying me with a contact for a legal case. He was an exceptional person and will be greatly missed.
He was a wonderful man, a great investigative journalist - and very generous with his time. I had a long chat with him at a journalism event about heists and police corruption and also remember his mischievous sense of humour very well. The investigative reporting workshop he did recently at the NUJ gave just a hint of some of the stories he covered so doggedly, but also his humanity for everyone involved shone through.
So sorry to hear of Duncan’s death and so glad I met him at the LFB event late last year.
A tiny footnote to an illustrious career is that as a grand old man of British journalism, in the last year or so he did training sessions for LFB and absolutely refused payment. And not even a footnote, just a personal note: when I came back down to London to freelance in 1979 he gave me my first non-music feature in Time Out, a complicated, compressed (I mean very difficult) “look” at the differences between life in London and life in Newcastle whence I’d descended. He was as helpful and sweet a guy to work for as you can imagine.
He really was a brilliant journalist, who I admired and respected; but more importantly he was a humble, kind man who supported young colleagues. I am blessed to have attended his last training session at the NUJ only a few months ago. I wish now that I had taken one of his books that he kindly offered but I wanted younger journalists to read his brilliant books.
I'm shocked and sorry to hear about the death of Duncan Campbell. I enjoyed his informative talk on investigative journalism and his work in general. He was a nice man and a brilliant journalist.
The unexpected death of journalist Duncan Campbell is a great loss to the union. He was on the side of the oppressed and the dispossessed.
As a dedicated crime reporter with distinctive qualities, he reported accurately from the Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court) and from the Royal Courts of Justice, explaining the complexity of the issues in these crime stories.
My abiding memory of him is when he was covering for the Guardian and I was writing for an overseas newspaper about the heated news on a cold day on 20 November 2003, when President George W. Bush was visiting his chum at 10 Downing Street [then prime minister Tony Blair].
There was a huge protest march against the president’s presence in this country. The security was the tightest that could be and the atmosphere was electric. The Met estimated that there were 200,000 people there; the BBC reported 20,000. No one knew what to expect when this unwelcome guest comes out to depart.
I spotted Duncan from a distance with his camera and running around unusually fast. He gestured to follow him. I gathered that he he had found out that Bush was to flee from the back door of Downing Street.
Thousands rushed towards the back door and had broken through the police cordon. Police started arresting large groups of people here, there, and everywhere - and exactly where I was standing. Thinking about that eventful day I realise Duncan’s knowledge and experience helped me to follow his safe route.
- Duncan Campbell, born on 15 December 1944 in Edinburgh, died on 16 May 2025 in London. It was only then that the Freelance discovered that he had lymphoma.