Paraic O'Brien is a Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Channel 4 News.
Paraic's investigations include the multi-award winning "Bruce Lee, King of Romania's Sewers", a searing film about the subterranean life of Bucharest's drug addicts. His expose of how the global online game Habbo Hotel was putting children at risk, resulted in a mass exodus of investors. His investigation into the death of Alois Dvorzac in a British detention centre exposed serious flaws in the immigration system.
He was the first TV reporter on the ground in Brixton and Croydon as the riots broke out in 2011. He also once had a minor altercation with Russell Brand.
Before joining Channel 4 News he worked at the BBC as an investigations reporter for BBC London News and Newsnight on occasion. Prior to that he was a community worker in Ireland and south London.
The Prime Minister has agreed to two experts sitting with Judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick for phase two of the investigation into the Grenfell Tower disaster. She had previously rejected calls for additional panel members.
Facebook has blocked foreign adverts that target voters in Ireland’s upcoming abortion referendum. The referendum, being held on 25 May, could repeal the Republic’s Eighth Amendment, which currently upholds a near-total ban on abortions. In a statement, Facebook said: “as part of our efforts to help protect the integrity of elections and referendums from undue…
Surgeons have dismissed as “ridiculous” the apparent suggestion by Donald Trump that guns could help deal with violent crime in London. The US President told a pro-gun rally in Texas that one hospital in the capital is like a “war-zone” because of this year’s spate of fatal stabbings. A trauma specialist from the Royal London…
The anniversary of the death of the teenager Stephen Lawrence will be marked every year with a national day to commemorate his life and legacy. As Theresa May announced the new Stephen Lawrence Day, his father Neville said his son’s memory would be enshrined in history. Stephen’s murder 25 years ago brought about a watershed…
It’s the small Canadian data firm credited with helping to take Britain out of the EU. But now Aggregate IQ are at the centre of another political storm – after this programme broadcast allegations that Vote Leave cheated. At question: more than half a million pounds paid to Aggregate IQ in the final weeks of…
In New York today, there was another mea culpa moment from a Facebook boss. Their head of news partnerships was talking about fake news but started with addressing the very real crisis of trust in the platform itself. Paraic O’Brien was there and reports from New York.
In the US, many questions linger over the role played by Cambridge Analytica in the election in 2016 of President Donald Trump, with demands by investigators that Alexander Nix be recalled to face further questioning before Senate and House committees. The President’s re-election campaign, Trump 2020, says it won’t be working with the data company…
An 18-year-old who came to this country from Iraq as a child asylum seeker has been convicted of attempted murder for placing a bomb which partially exploded on a packed London Underground train. He’d made the bomb at home, using materials he’d ordered on the internet and paid for with a voucher he’d won as…
In Syria – a massive military onslaught last night has led to the exodus of thousands of civilians from a town in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region just outside the capital, Damascus. Its a grim marker of seven years since the start of the conflict.
The Syrian army says it’s on the verge of cutting through the surrounded, rebel-held area of east Ghouta near the capital Damascus. According to human rights groups, more than 900 civilians have been killed there in the last 18 days and the Red Cross has held back an aid convoy because of the intense fighting.…
The resurgence of movements inspired by Fascism have been very much part of Italy’s chaotic electoral campaign. The combination of a struggling economy and the mass influx of migrants and refugees in recent years have created fertile ground for ultra-nationalistic rhetoric. Channel 4 News spent time with a tiny but ambitious political party called CasaPound which…
It’s a town that used to house 60,000 people. Now Arbin in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta has just a few thousand inhabitants left. And for the majority of those, the only place to try to escape the artillery and air strikes is underground, sheltering in basements and tunnels. The conditions are desperate.
From 9am until 2pm, the guns will fall silent, according to the man literally calling the shots apparently over Eastern Ghouta now – President Putin of Russia. It’s a long way from the 30-day ceasefire without delay demanded by the UN Security Council. But better than non-stop fighting There will also be the much talked…
Six defendants, including three prominent journalists, have been jailed for life by a Turkish court, accused of involvement in the failed 2016 coup. Their lawyer said they would appeal, calling the verdict “a decision where freedoms of expression and thought have been destroyed”. More than 38,000 people are currently in jail, as part of the…
A stark reminder of the risks of rough sleeping, just yards from parliament’s door. A homeless man was found dead in Westminster Tube station underpass after last night’s freezing weather. Jeremy Corbyn, whose team are thought to have helped the man in the past, said the “powerful can’t keen walking by on the other side”.