The Times wins big at Press Awards

The Times was a big winner at last night's British Press Awards, taking home three gongs including National Newspaper of the Year.

The Times' editor, James Harding, was presented with the coveted award by Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Judges paid tribute to the "all-round excellence" of The Times, focussing on the depth of its foreign coverage and added that the paper had been "miraculously transformed" since Harding took over as editor in 2007.

Harding said the award was "humbling".

The Times also won Campaign of the Year for Camilla Cavendish's investigation into family courts, while writer Matthew Syed was named Sports Journalist of the Year.

Other big winners were The Mail on Sunday and the Guardian, who claimed four awards each.

The Independent's Stephen Foley won Business and Finance Journalist of the Year, while regular Independent freelancer Dan McDougall picked up Foreign Reporter of the Year.

The Guardian's four awards came as guardian.co.uk was named Website of the Year for the second year in a row.

Charlie Brooker was named Newspaper Columnist of the Year, while Decca Aitkenhead and Dave Hill picked up Interviewer and Digital Journalist of the Year respectively.

The Journalist of the Year award went to Gillian Tett of the Financial Times while the Daily Mail picked up three awards, including Political Journalist of the Year for Quentin Letts and Specialist Journalist of the Year for Stephen Wright.

Wright also won the Hugh Cudlipp Award alongside Richard Pendlebury for their work on the New Scotland Yard race war story.

The Telegraph, News of the World and The Sun picked up a single award each.