Kaylee’s gangland documentary takes top award at Midlands Media Student Awards

A documentary featuring women associated with 1960s gangland London has earned a University of Northampton student a top award.

Kaylee Poloczek won the Culture category at the Midlands Media Student Awards, held in Birmingham last night (Wednesday 10 April) for her 10-minute documentary, Women of the Underworld.

The film features interviews with Maureen Flanagan, a Page 3 pin-up and hairdresser to Ronnie and Reggie Kray’s mother, and Veronica, the wife of rival gang boss Charlie Richardson.

You can read more about the film and watch it Women behind the Krays and Richardsons.

Kaylee said: “This is wonderful. I couldn’t believe it. I’m really pleased. I can now say I’m an award-winning journalist. It was really great working on the documentary. I was fascinated by the relationships these women had with these violent and criminal men and luckily I had the contacts to be able to persuade them to give me interviews.”

Fellow Multimedia Journalism students Ama Esson and Samuel Ogunleye were both highly commended – Ama for her entries in the Broadcasting (Radio) and Social Issues & Campaigning Journalism categories, and Samuel for his entry in the Sport category.

You can read more about Samuel’s documentary and watch it Death of diversity in football’s boardrooms.

Samuel said: “It was enough to be nominated but it was fabulous to see my documentary be Highly Commended.”

Ama said: “It was great just to be nominated because lots of people didn’t make it this far. But to be Highly Commended in both my categories was amazing.”

From left: Ama Esson, Kaylee Poloczek and Samuel Ogunleye

Journalism Subject Leader at the University, Matt Walsh, said: “We are immensely proud of everything Kaylee, Sam and Ama have achieved. All three worked extremely hard to produce excellent documentaries on a range of powerful social issues. They used their contacts to get some fantastic interviews and then told those stories in truly compelling ways. This is well-deserved recognition of the talent on our journalism courses.”

The awards, organised by Birmingham Press Club to acknowledge the achievements of next-generation journalists, broadcasters and photographers, attracted several hundred entries from universities and colleges from the East and West Midlands.