After graduating, Norfolk worked as a reporter with the
Scarborough Evening News in 1989, where he was a representative for the
National Union of Journalists. He became a reporter for the
Yorkshire Post in 1995, a reporter for
The Times in 2000, north-east correspondent for
The Times in 2002, and the newspaper's chief investigative reporter in 2012. he produced a series of reports that triggered several formal inquiries. He had known about the grooming earlier because
Ann Cryer, the MP for
Keighley, had publicly raised concerns about the abuse of two girls. As a result of this work, he won the
Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in February 2013; the judges said his stories had "prompted two government-ordered inquiries, a parliamentary inquiry and a new national action plan on child sexual exploitation". In May that year, he shared the
Orwell Prize with Tom Bergin of Reuters, and in December 2014 he was named Journalist of the Year by the British Journalism Awards. In August 2017,
The Times published an article by Norfolk headlined "Christian child forced into Muslim foster care" about a foster placement in the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The borough council complained to the
Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which ruled that the story was riddled with inaccuracies. IPSO required
The Times to run the ruling in the front page of its print edition and in its online edition. Norfolk afterwards said that with hindsight, he would not write the story again. In November 2024, Norfolk retired after a 24-year career at
The Times. In January 2025, following further news coverage of the child sexual exploitation scandal, Norfolk said publicly that the root causes of grooming gangs had still not been properly examined and criticised how the issue had been hijacked by the
far-right.
Appraisal Upon announcement of his death on 15 May 2025,
Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister, led tributes to Norfolk saying: “I am deeply sorry to hear of Andrew’s death. He wasn’t just an incredibly talented reporter, at The Times and elsewhere, he was driven by the desire to call our attention to injustice and protect the most vulnerable." A number of high-profile journalists and politicians reacted to Norfolk's death, including
Tony Gallagher, the editor of
The Times, who said: “Andrew was, without doubt, one of the greatest investigative reporters of our or any age. His tireless work exposing the evils of the predominantly Asian grooming gangs in and around towns in the north of England led to long overdue acknowledgement of the crimes, after the people who had been in a position to put a stop to it for years chose to look the other way." ==Death==