'Fearless, intrepid, dogged'

Kim Sengupta had such a knack for talking to anyone, from ambassadors or generals to troopers to civilians - and he never gave up on a story, says former editor Chris Blackhurst

- Chris Blackhurst

In many years of working with Kim Sengupta, I never came across anyone so fearless. He regarded it as his job, duty, calling, to report on the world's conflicts, to go where others could not, or would not, and tell us how it was.

I worked with him as a reporter and he was a master storygetter, dogged in his pursuit, sometimes parking a morsel but not forgetting about it, returning to it later when the time was right.

Then, as editor, I soon got to appreciate which journalists were “high maintenance”, constantly and painfully seeking approval and reassurance. Even some of the paper’s “stars” would fall into this bracket. Kim, despite the places he went and what he put himself through, was most definitely not one of those. If he said he was going somewhere, he went, he saw, he reported and he left.

His quiet, understated and polite manner would quickly win people’s trust. He had an extraordinary knack for talking to anyone, be they high up or lowly, from ambassadors or generals to troopers to civilians – to those of an unspecified background (security services most probably) and extracting information from them. He had an unerring ability to put himself in their shoes, to understand their problems and fears.