Duncan Campbell (journalist, born 1944)
 Duncan Campbell    ( journalist, author) | |
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| Born | 15 December 1944 |
| Died | 16 May 2025 (Age 80) |
| Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
| Spouse | Julie Christie |
Iain Duncan Campbell was a British journalist and author who worked particularly on crime issues.[1]
On 17 May 2025, his colleague Francis Wheen wrote on Facebook:
- "I don’t think I’ve ever known a journalist who was so universally loved by his colleagues as Duncan Campbell, the former crime correspondent of The Guardian (and, before that, a mainstay of Time Out and City Limits, as well as a team-mate of mine in the New Statesman cricket side). A brilliant reporter, he was also a total mensch."[2]
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Journalist
In 1975, Campbell became news editor of Time Out magazine edited by his university contemporary John Lloyd. While at Time Out, Duncan was involved in a number of notorious cases, including the ABC Trial (1977-78) of a former soldier and two journalists (including another journalist called Duncan Campbell, a coincidence that both journalists liked to play on).
With other Time Out colleagues, Duncan left in 1981 in protest against the decision by Tony Elliott, the magazine’s owner, to abandon its equal pay policy. He joined the breakaway publication, City Limits. That went on to fold in 1993, unable to withstand commercial pressures, but by February 1987 Duncan had already left to join Robert Maxwell’s new and ill-fated publication the London Daily News. When it collapsed in July the same year, he successfully applied to join The Guardian.
After a spell on the news desk, he was appointed the paper’s crime correspondent, a role that further established his name as the leading, most authoritative, journalist on that beat. He was elected chairman of the Crime Reporters Association and was awarded the Bar Council’s newspaper journalist of the year in 1992. In an inspired move, Alan Rusbridger appointed Duncan the Guardian’s Los Angeles correspondent, from where he also covered South America.
Campbell left The Guardian in 2010, but continued to be an active member of the National Union of Journalists, alerting members to what he regarded as just but neglected causes, including growing threats to journalists around the world.
Author
Duncan’s sense of humour, his observations on the quirks and frailties of the human condition, attracted him to the comedian Billy Connolly. A relationship that Duncan valued deeply led to two book collaborations – "Billy Connolly: The Authorised Version" (1976), which became a bestseller, and "Gullible’s Travels" (1982), about a Connolly tour of Britain in 1975, and, six years later, of the Middle East.
His book "That Was Business, This Is Personal: The Changing Faces of Professional Crime" (1990) was a series of interviews and profiles of criminals, detectives, lawyers and others in the criminal justice process. "The Underworld" (1994) was written to accompany the BBC series on organised crime in Britain, with an updated version published in 2019. His supreme talent at spinning a good tale, often inspired by an unrivalled knowledge and experience of shady and not-so shady worlds, was brilliantly reflected in two novels – "The Paradise Trail" (2008) and "If It Bleeds" (2009) – and in "We’ll All Be Murdered in Our Beds", subtitled "The Shocking History of Crime Reporting in Britain" (2016).
Marriage
In 2005, in India, Duncan married his longtime partner, the actor Julie Christie. They met in 1978 at the Dingwalls club in Camden, north London.
She survives him, as do his sister, Fionna, and brother, Niall.
