Gogglebox among TV documentary winners

Channel 4's Gogglebox series and its one-off programme The Paedophile Hunter were among the winners at the 43rd British Documentary Awards on Monday.

The awards celebrate documentaries from Britain and abroad that "have made a significant contribution to the genre".

Gogglebox, which films people watching and discussing the week's TV, was named most entertaining documentary.

The Paedophile Hunter, investigating online child grooming, was named best documentary on a contemporary theme.

The programme, which was screened last year, was led by self-styled undercover reporter Stinson Hunter, who posed online as an under-age child.

He was subsequently approached by men sending explicit messages, videos and pictures and arranging to meet.

The jury of the awards, run by the Grierson Trust, external, praised the programme for its "provocative and confident" take on the issue.

Meanwhile Gogglebox, which has become Channel 4's top-rated programme, attracting an average of five million viewers per weekly show, was said by the jury to be "a powerful snapshot of what life is like in Britain in the 21st Century".

The jury also called it "a love song to the simple pleasure of spending quality time with the people you love".

Since it began in 2013, the series has made stars of many of its sofa-dwellers, such as George Gilbey and "posh" couple Steph and Dom Parker, who now also have a spin-off series of their own, Steph and Dom Meet...

Overall Channel 4 had a good night at the annual awards ceremony. Its programme Curing Cancer won best science or natural history documentary.

The Romanians are Coming, exploring the lives of Romanians trying to make a new life in Britain, won best documentary series.

Grayson Perry won best documentary presenter for the channel's three-part series Who Are You? in which the artist met different individuals and groups of people in an exploration of the meaning of identity. He went on to make portraits of his subjects.

Jury chairperson Lorraine Heggessey - former BBC One controller - said: "Grayson is an interviewer who gets under the skin of his subjects and an artist who captures their essence. He's one of our greatest national treasures."

The BBC won two awards with BBC Three programmes Our War: Goodbye Afghanistan, named best documentary on current affairs, and Our World War: The First Day, taking the title of best historical documentary.

The Grierson Awards commemorate the pioneering Scottish documentary film-maker John Grierson, famous for Drifters and Night Mail, and the man widely regarded as the father of the documentary.