Richard Brooks

Richard Brooks (born 18 August 1965) is a British investigative journalist and former tax inspector. He writes principally for Private Eye, is the author of books on accountancy and tax avoidance, and was a 16-year senior corporate tax inspector for HMRC. He is the joint winner of two Paul Foot Awards, an annual award for investigative or campaigning journalism.

Career

Brooks worked as a HM Revenue and Customs tax inspector for 16 years up until 2005 specialising in international and corporate taxation.

Since 2005, he has been a regular contributor to Private Eye. With Andrew Bousfield, he was joint-winner again of the Paul Foot Award in 2014 for their investigations in Private Eye on bribery in Shady Arabia and the Desert Fix. In 2018 Brooks published a new book, Bean Counters: The Triumph of Accountants and how they broke Capitalism.

With Nick Wallis, he co-authored Private Eyes extensive report on the British Post Office scandal, "Justice Lost In The Post".

In January 2022, Brooks alongside Ian Hislop and Solomon Hughes presented evidence on MPs' conduct to the House of Commons' Standards Committee