Post journalist dies in London

South China Morning Post journalist Simon Macklin was found dead near his London home early yesterday.

Police found Macklin, 39, on the pavement outside his flat in Mulready House, Pimlico, at 1am after a report that someone had fallen from a fourth-floor window. An investigation is under way and a coroner's inquest will be held.

The discovery was made less than four hours after Macklin, the paper's London correspondent and former news editor, had filed a story to the Post's foreign desk.

Recently, he had been writing a series of reports on the tragedy at Dover, England, in which 58 mainlanders died after being found in a refrigerated truck.

Macklin began his career in Hong Kong with a brief spell at the Hong Kong Standard. He joined the Post in September 1986, establishing himself as a specialist writer on the subject of Vietnamese boat people.

As chief reporter in 1989, he won the Hong Kong Journalist of the Year award and took first prize for best feature story. In November 1990, he was made assistant news editor and seven months later became news editor.