The Belfast Telegraph’s website last night scooped the top gong at a major awards ceremony.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk was named News Website of the Year at the 2009 Coca Cola Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Press and Broadcast Awards.

The site was praised for fulfilling “all the requirements in this category and then some”.

The judging panel said: “While the accent is on local news, with an interesting and varied selection of stories, it also covers the main UK and world news well. It is well presented with a clear and clean design and is easy to navigate.”

In a night of top awards for the Belfast Telegraph, investigations correspondent David Gordon was named Northern Ireland Journalist of the Year and Lesley-Anne Henry won the Newcomer of the Year award for her brilliant series of reports from Afghanistan. Lesley-Anne had just flown in from Iraq earlier in the day, where she had been on a recent assignment with the troops in Basra.

And the Belfast Telegraph’s Weekend magazine — launched last year — was named Supplement of the Year.

Veteran reporter Robin Morton received the Chairman’s Special Recognition Award while the Belfast Telegraph’s website won the top on-line award for News Website of the Year.

The awards were held at a 6sglittering ceremony in Belfast’s Europa Hotel, and saw journalists and broadcasters from across Northern Ireland celebrate their achievements over the past 12 months.

David, who won CIPR Print Journalist in 2008, was praised by the judging panel for what they described as “troublemaking journalism at its best”.

The panel said : “His body of work shows what a nuisance he made of himself in 2008. Representing trouble-making journalism at its best, his relentless digging in search of the truth is to be loudly applauded.

“His efforts during the year included a rare sample of every journalist’s ambition — an investigation that produced seismic political shocks in Northern Ireland. As an exponent of good old-fashioned journalism, he got himself banned from an interview with Ian Paisley and that, surely, says it all. He is a determined professional whose undoubted skills deliver the goods day in, day out, helping to make his paper a ‘must read’ throughout the year.”

Lesley-Anne Henry was singled out for best newcomer and winner of the Martin O’Hagan Memorial Bursary for her “top class portfolio” of human interest reporting from Afghanistan about Ireland's own soldiers.

The judges said: “Her reporting from Afghanistan turned a facility trip that can so often produce very ordinary local boy stories into a fascinating human interest snapshot of a regiment at work in a war zone. Her interviewing was comprehensive and her filing prolific proving that everyone has a story to tell so long as the reporter is clever enough to find them.

“She is a potential star in yet another generation of classy young journalists groomed in Northern Ireland.”

The Telegraph’s decision to launch its Weekend magazine in the current market was, according to the judges, “a huge gamble that has paid of” and was commended for being “well constructed, well designed and full of confidence”.

Robin Morton — who received the Chairman’s Special Recognition Award — has spent 35 years with the Telegraph. During that time he has covered some of the most momentous events in Ulster’s recent history, including many of the key events of the Troubles. He has also worked on the business desk for many years.