My first trip abroad came in 2004 when I was a staff reporter at The Herald in Glasgow. Working for The Herald Magazine, I visited Slovakia with photographer Angie Catlin to document the dire living conditions of the Roma Gypsy population.
A few months later we visited Moscow to investigate the rise of neo-Nazi groups following a number of brutal slayings across Russia. Our report won two awards from Amnesty International.
Two years later, Angie and I both left The Herald to freelance as we wanted to focus on producing in-depth reports on human rights issues.
Since 2004 I've reported from the following places -
America, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Canada, Dubai, Gaza, Greece, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Israel, Iraq, Iraqi-Kurdistan, Lebanon, Nepal, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Spain, Syria and the West Bank.
Scroll down to read my stories.
IRAQ
In April 2017, I was commissioned by The Ferret to visit Iraq with Angie Catlin to document the impact of Islamic State’s rule in the region. We reported from the city of Mosul, where Islamic State was fighting Iraqi military forces, and spent time in Iraqi-Kurdistan investigating issues affecting the Kurds and the Yazidis. The trip was only possible thanks to The Ferret’s subscribers. My reporting from Iraq won the Outstanding Digital Journalist of The Year category at the 2018 Scottish Press Awards. Reports below -
The Ferret
https://theferret.scot/inside-mosul/
https://theferret.scot/mosul-iraq-human-cost-battle-defeat-isis/
https://theferret.scot/iraq-war-destruction-liberation-batnaya/
https://theferret.scot/insight-the-iraqi-christian-militia-established-to-fight-islamic-state/
https://theferret.scot/podcast-genocide-yazidis-scotlands-call-justice/
Vice News
www.vice.com/en_id/article/ywzxqx/locals-in-iraqi-town-destroyed-by-isis-stay-to-protect-the-ruins
Lacuna Magazine
https://lacuna.org.uk/justice/demanding-justice-yazidi-genocide/
The Big Issue in the North
www.bigissuenorth.com/features/2017/07/minority-report/
PAKISTAN
In 2015, I visited northwest Pakistan with Angie Catlin to document the fight against Islamist extremism. We worked with a human rights organisation called Aware Girls, which has a network of peace activists trying to prevent young people being recruited by the Pakistan Taliban.
Click links below to read our reports -
The Guardian -
www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/oct/13/the-peshawar-women-fighting-the-taliban-we-cannot-trust-anyone
Al Jazeera -
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/12/remembering-peshawar-school-massacre-151215071631624.html
New Zealand Herald -
www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11430983
USA
In December 2013, I visited the USA with Angie Catlin. In Detroit, a city that had filed for bankruptcy in July that year, we spent time with an armed vigilante group called Detroit 300. It was formed by frightened citizens to hunt down criminals and protect neighbourhoods, due to a crisis of police resources.
Our story was published by both The Guardian and New Zealand Herald.
Click links below.
The Guardian -
www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/26/city-streets-detroit-300-community-police-forces-armed
New Zealand Herald -
www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11202501
During our US trip we also spent time in Chicago, to report on gun crime in America's murder capital. We interviewed shooting victims and members of organised criminal gangs, Black P Stones and the Latin Kings. Our report was published by the Sunday Mail newspaper in Scotland. The article is not online but a hard copy is available on request.
IRAQI-KURDISTAN
The Qandil mountains in Iraqi-Kurdistan are sacred to the Kurdish people. They are also home to a guerrilla group called the Kurdistan Free Life Party, aka PJAK, which has fought an armed struggle against the Iranian government since 2004. PJAK is viewed as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (the PKK) and deemed a terrorist organisation by the USA.
About half of PJAK's membership is female, and I visited them in Qandil in 2011 with Angie Catlin. Our reports were published by The Herald Magazine, The Age and the New Zealand Herald, among others.
New Zealand Herald -
www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10801930
GUATEMALA
More than 200,000 people died in Guatemala's civil war which ended in 1996 but thousands of innocent civilians are still executed by gangs and police every year. I visited the capital, Guatemala City, with Angie Catlin in 2006 to cover a number of issues including the estimated 45,000 people who vanished during the conflict. They became known as The Disappeared. Our report, Secrets of the Dead, was published by The Guardian -
The Guardian -
ISRAEL
In the Negev, a desert region in Israel, Angie Catlin and I witnessed a Bedouin village, near the town of Beersheba, being razed to the ground by the Israeli Defence Force in 2008. According to Israel, the Bedouin Arabs had no right to live there, the tiny settlement deemed an "unrecognised village". This place was home to the al-Atrash tribe for nearly 30 years until the authorities arrived to destroy it.
Our story was published by the Sunday Herald newspaper in Scotland and the New Zealand Herald. Click link below -
New Zealand Herald -
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10563933
LEBANON
Some 18 months after a war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, I visited southern Lebanon with Angie Catlin to document the legacy of the conflict. The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day battle between, primarily, Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. The UN estimates that Israel dropped four million explosive devices during the battle including one million cluster bombs, rendering huge swathes of Lebanese land uninhabitable.
Our report for Scotland On Sunday's Spectrum Magazine focused on the hundreds of civilians killed and maimed by Israel's cluster bombs. A hard copy of Spectrum Magazine is available on request. Click link below to read a separate report published by Mines Advisory Group, the UK charity who funded our trip -
http://archive.maginternational.org/news/lebanon-tackling-the-lethal-legacy-of-conflict/
HAITI
In 2006 I visited Haiti with photographer Angie Catlin to document the lives of people living in a shanty town called Cite Soleil in the capital, Port Au Prince. The slum is ruled by armed gangs and living conditions are utterly appalling for its population of around 300,000 people. The trip was facilitated by the Scottish charity, Mary's Meals.
Our reports were published by The Sunday Times, Sunday Herald, Scotland On Sunday's Spectrum Magazine, New Statesman, The Catholic Herald and The Big Issue.
The Sunday Times -
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-feeding-of-the-slum-5000-26p0hn5ddc3
Hard copies/PDFs are available on request for the rest of our reports.
NEPAL
In 2007 Angie Catlin and I travelled to eastern Nepal to document an intractable refugee crisis largely ignored by the world. For nearly 20 years, around 100,000 people had languished in refugee camps near the border with India after being "ethnically cleansed" from Bhutan. Our report for Scotland On Sunday's Spectrum Magazine was called The Forgotten Ones.
We also reported on child labour at stone quarries near Kathmandu, and we interviewed the man who led a communist insurgency and became Nepal's Maoist leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal. He is better known as Prachanda, a nom de guerre which translates as Fierce One. Dahal later became Nepal's 33rd prime minister.
The report on child labour was published by Sunday Herald Magazine while New Statesman published our interview with Prachanda. Hard copies available on request
GAZA
In 2008 I visited Gaza with Angie Catlin to investigate the impact of Israel's economic siege on a small piece of land that is home to 1.8 million Palestinians. Gaza is governed by the Islamist group Hamas but Israel controls everything that enters and leaves the territory. During clashes between Hamas and Israel, thousands of people have been killed over the years, mostly Palestinians.
Interviewees included children at risk of death due to a lack of medicines, Gaza fishermen who'd been shot at sea, and Palestinian fighters with the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing. Our report made cover story for The Herald Magazine in June 2008. It's not online but a hard copy is available on request. The Scotsman newspaper also published a story.
SYRIA
I travelled to Damascus, Syria, in 2008 with Angie Catlin, to report on the Iraqi refugee crisis for the Scottish Refugee Council. Much attention had been given to the conflict in Iraq over the previous five years, but much less to the resulting humanitarian crisis and the 4.7 million refugees who had been displaced from their homes.
There were 1.5 million refugees in Syria, mostly in Damascus, and we interviewed some of the families. As part of the project, we also interviewed Iraqis who came to Scotland for sanctuary. Our report was published by Sunday Herald Magazine and a hard copy is available on request. I also wrote a piece for the BBC. Click link below -
BBC -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7449077.stm