Adrienne McGill from The News Letter in Belfast has been named Bradford & Bingley Personal Finance Regional Journalist of the Year.

Judges chose the business and personal finance editor as the category winner after praising her for her “ability to engage her readership with interesting and relevant articles”.

Adrienne scooped £1,500 prize money for her efforts, after beating runner-up Lesley Campbell from the Daily Record to the top prize.

The award followed the Belfast-based writer’s success at the British Insurance Brokers’ Association awards in June, where she was also named Regional Journalist of the Year.

At the Bradford & Bingley Personal Finance Media Awards, other winners included James Daley from The Independent, who was named Personal Finance National Journalist of the Year, and Liz Phillips from the Daily Mail, who won the News Scoop of the Year prize for her reporting on the turnaround of some major insurers to pay for breast cancer drug Herceptin.

All the winners of the competition, now in its 20th year, were announced during a ceremony at The Great Eastern Hotel in London.