Two Press Awards wins for AA Gill three months after his death from cancer

Critic AA Gill has been honoured with two awards by fellow journalists three months after his death from cancer.

The Sunday Times columnist, who died in December aged 62, was named feature writer of the year and critic of the year at the annual Press Awards on Tuesday night.

His final column, in which he candidly recounted his cancer fight and praised the NHS, was among the winning entries in the features category.

The former smoker was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to his neck and pancreas, with tumours that were inoperable and unsuitable for radiotherapy, after noticing his health was failing in the autumn.

Eleanor Mills, editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, said: "He was a brilliant writer and a really, lovely, special man.

"He'd wanted to write that piece about the NHS for ages but we couldn't get him the access. He was a trooper - as he was dying he wouldn't take his morphine because he wanted to stay compos mentis to read the proofs."

The Daily Mail was named newspaper of the year at the awards, organised on behalf of the industry by the Society of Editors.

The Daily Telegraph's story on Sam Allardyce offering advice on how to circumvent FA rules, which saw his England career brought to a premature end, was awarded digital scoop of the year.

Among the winners in the photographic categories was the Press Association's Dominic Lipinski, who scooped the photographer of the year prize for images including one of the Queen peering out from behind a curtain at Buckingham Palace.