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From Wondery, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine. And this is British Scandal. MUSIC
So, Alice, we've just finished the utterly bizarre story of John Stonehouse, the MP who faked his own death to get away from financial and political troubles. How did you feel about him by the end? Oh, it's been a dramatic one, hasn't it? I've been on a roller coaster. I don't know about you. So, I mean, clearly he's an egotistical, selfish cheater. He's a manipulator. But then his ambition and his idealism were definitely abused by those Czech handlers. So there's a lot of texture in this one.
Yes, well, today's guest should be able to shed some light on all of that. Julian Hayes is a lawyer and author who wrote John Stonehouse, Cabinet Minister, Fraudster Spy. He's also John Stonehouse's grandnephew, and his father was Stonehouse's nephew and lawyer. He joins us next. MUSIC
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It's always been there. I lived through it as a kid. My family, in particular, my father was embroiled in the whole scandal court case and everything because of his involvement with my uncle.
and as time has progressed it has been the case that questions arose why did my parents behave in a particular certain way how did it affect the family and indeed obviously I read the various stories that came out about his involvement with the checks the business dealings the disappearance
And the curiosity, I suppose, of the whole scenario was so great that I felt it merited, first of all, further investigation because I had a lot of unanswered questions.
And then as I investigated, I thought, well, it actually needed telling properly because it's been rather like Chinese whispers. A lot of it has been, I think, perverted, if you like, over the years and really the full story needs to be put out there. Julian, what was your father's involvement with Stonehouse?
Well, my father's his nephew. They had a very close relationship. My father rather looked up to his uncle, naturally, because he viewed him as very successful. He was a politician during the 60s, obviously, he was a minister. And he tried to emulate him in certain ways. We went to Africa. My earliest memories of living in Africa.
And when we returned, my father then began to train as a lawyer. And it sort of dovetailed with the time that Stonehouse's own political career had started to take a little bit of a downturn. And he wanted to focus on business. And he messed up with my father, I think, just before Christmas in 1969.
and asked my father to help him set up a number of businesses that ultimately were to be used by him to be able to make lots of money. So they were very closely connected. This is obviously a very personal story. It would be great to get a bit of a sense of John Stonehouse's upbringing, if you could. Maybe a bit about his parents and in particular the influence of his mother on his upbringing.
John was one of four children, two boys, two girls, and they were brought up in a very committed socialist background. His parents were very staunch socialists. They had, in fact, been very prominent members of the cooperative society. And indeed, his mother ultimately became the first woman Labour mayor of Southampton.
Are there any stories from his childhood that encapsulate him as a person? Yeah. One story was, in fact, he went off on holiday to France in about August 1939.
And it was at that time that war was declared and he was stranded in France. And nowadays, you know, you have modern technology, mobile phones, computers, everything. So it's relatively straightforward to be able to get across and return. But at that particular point, and I suppose the recent war in Ukraine gives you some idea what sort of chaos was arising at that point.
He managed to get his way back to the UK under his own advices. He was only about, I think, 14 at that time. So it perhaps gives an indication of his resourcefulness, his independence and his confidence. And perhaps his charm as well, you know, fascinating character even then.
A large part of the story you tell in your book are the allegations surrounding John as an informant for the Czech Secret Service. Before we get into his alleged involvement, could you maybe just give us a bit of context, a bit about the atmosphere of suspicion and espionage specific to that moment in history? Yeah, well, I think actually we're touching on that now with everything that's going on with Russia and China.
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the Soviets were very keen to develop their own sphere of influence, especially in Europe.
And obviously the British and the Americans became very suspicious of the Soviets and were diametrically opposed in their own agenda as to how they wanted to pursue any world order. So they soon developed a huge amount of suspicion. The Americans and the British developed nuclear arms. The Russians soon developed their own nuclear arms.
And before we knew it, there was a bit of an arms race and both parties were concerned about what the other could do to each other. So there was a real suspicion of what the other side were up to. And also there was a little bit of a
competition, if you like, as to how they could influence other parts of the world. So what actually became known as the Cold War developed. And that wasn't just down to this idea of, you know, we've got a bigger army or bigger nuclear arsenal than you. Part of it also involved information and obtaining information.
And that was developed through obtaining influence, if you like. They would approach politicians and trade unionists and would develop relationships with them in order to help them with their agenda. And it was clearly the case that during the 1950s in particular, the Soviet bloc were all
trying to obtain as much information and influence in Western countries like the UK, like West Germany at the time, and indeed even in the United States. Obviously, the allegation is that John Stonehouse was a Czech spy. Some people don't believe that, including your relative Julia Stonehouse.
Why do you think some people are sceptical about those allegations? I don't think some people. I think the principal person is actually Julia. And, you know, I can understand. I mean, it's her father. Nobody likes the idea that somebody that close could be involved in the sort of activities that have been described.
It is the case that, as with many organisations, there are corrupt individuals. And it is the situation that on occasions they would, in order to obtain money from their own government, make up information. And there was a particular book written by Joseph Schrollach
where he describes a particular scene when they were in a bar where they were obviously spending lots of money on drink and getting very drunk. And he was saying, well, where do we get this money from? And the guy says, well, see that barman? I'll go back and make up a report saying that, you know, we were getting information from him and we had to spend a certain amount of money. And it was in order to pay for this particular guy and get that information.
So, you know, he did describe that particular incident, but one has to temper that with the fact that actually the episode that's described was one involving somebody who couldn't actually be traced by his immediate superiors. If they wanted to actually check it out,
then they weren't going to be able to actually easily ascertain whether or not that particular person was in effect involved. So what the position was with regards to somebody like Stonehouse,
was that he was somebody who was able to be traced, able to be spoken to, and indeed would rumble anybody who was up to some corrupt activity in order to obtain money from their government. On top of that, the individual that was in fact his handler at that time was somebody who was very respected by Mr Frolic, and there was never any suggestion
in the Frolic account and indeed from other defectors ultimately who were very clear that this particular individual, Captain Husak, was a very dependable and very respected member of the team and certainly was not up to those sorts of particular activities. Can I ask Julian, in your opinion, what made Stonehouse the perfect mark for the Czech Secret Service? What was so appealing about him?
He was very young when he was elected as MP in 1957. I think he was the youngest MP at that time in the House of Parliament. There's a distinct lack of mentoring of MPs when they go into Parliament for the first time. And as a result, they
can be prone to be targeted by governments, businesses or other organisations. And it's very easy to be able to, I suppose, groom them. And certainly what I describe in my book, Stonehouse, is a classic case of grooming. He was groomed by the Czechs and that's really by them gaining some trust
and providing him with some advice and ultimately some financial assistance. And it is something that for somebody who is new into that particular environment, you are very susceptible to that particular mode of operation. How precarious was it being an informant during the 60s? And do you think there were any moments in which John thought the game might be up?
I don't think he ever thought the game was up. I think John tried to play a game. What happened was that he wanted money out of the Czechs in order to pursue his own goals. The Czechs wanted information out of him. He tried to give them as little information as he could, which is very frustrating for the Czechs, and they paid him large sums of money.
There were a number of episodes that arose whilst he was providing with information which did give cause for concern. There was one particular MP called Will Owen who was also in the employ of the Czechs.
and he was nicknamed 'Greedy Bastard' by the Czechs because he was solely after money. But as a result of the Frolic defection in 1969, Will Owen was outed and it was discovered that he in fact had been receiving payments and Owen admitted that. But what he then put as part of his defence when he was put up for trial was that the information he supplied to the Czechs
was of no value in terms of it being secret or compromising for the British government. And ultimately after a trial he was acquitted. So that would have been a great worry to Stonehouse because he knew Owen and in fact there was at least one documented meeting between Owen and Stonehouse which is on the Czech files.
So, yeah, he would have watched that trial with some interest and worry. And what has to be borne in mind was that, in fact, Stonehouse had also been spoken to by the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson because he had been named as well by Frolic when he defected. And it was during the course of that particular investigation that clearly Stonehouse decided to disengage entirely from the Cheques.
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Putting it mildly, he had a very complicated political and work life and also quite a complicated private life. So against this backdrop of danger, Stonehouse finds refuge in an affair with his 22-year-old secretary, Sheila.
But in a lot of ways, their relationship wasn't really shocking to those who knew him. People were aware of his roving eye, as you put it in your book, right? Yeah, it was an open family secret. When Barbara found out about his first affairs, he basically said, well, that's who I am. That's what I'm about. And it was almost, well, I'll have to live with it or die.
move on, I think. Not that John wanted that to be the case, but he was quite blunt about it. So everybody was quite aware of it. I think also the other aspect to bear in mind is that the press at that time were perhaps not complicit, but certainly more tolerant or understanding of politicians having extramarital affairs and wouldn't actually necessarily report it.
And it was only ultimately in the 1970s that that sort of thing came out. So, yeah, it was very much an open secret within the family of what he got up to. And I think amongst his colleagues as well. Julian, are we talking affairs of the heart? Are these kind of long term affairs? Are these sort of behind the scenes encounters? No, they weren't. No, they were...
often dalliances, although Barbara did later sort of say to a newspaper that she thought that he needed to fall in love every two or three years in order to sort of keep things going in terms of his romantic affections.
But a lot of his affairs were simply just that, just brief affairs that didn't necessarily last very long. It certainly sounds like sex was a driving force, a distracting driving force. Well, if you look at it, and I think you touched on it, he likes to live dangerously. He likes that sort of high octane life.
And it was something I think that very much drove him, that powered him. Julian, was he a master manipulator? I mean, we've been talking about why these women would stay by his side after so many years. How did he manage to convince them to essentially give up their lives for Barbara, 20 plus years of marriage, and then Sheila to wait for him while he was in prison? What was it about him that made them make those sacrifices? Um...
We had oodles of charm. He could talk the talk. And the other thing is, and I've talked to various people about this, when he's one-on-one with you, and I think it's very much the case with lots of very successful people, the attention that he gives is sort of like a spotlight. It's sort of, you know, very intense, very intoxicating.
And I think these two women and indeed the other various appearances he's had, they found it very, very intoxicating and they wanted more of that. Barbara is different because obviously they had three children, they'd made a life, they'd been together for 20 odd years. And Barbara had gone through and tolerated his extramarital affairs on the basis that he was a good family man, he was very devoted to his children.
He was very devoted to Barbara when he was with them and she ultimately thought that his principal love was for her. So I think that's the reason why it stuck with Barbara. Sheila was different and I think that relationship became more intense, especially during the difficult times Sheila stuck with him and I think that cemented that relationship. And I think when
Barbara finally had enough and divorced him at the end of the criminal trial. Sheila was then all too willing to form a life with him.
His financial problems are a big part of this story and they seem to have reached a point of no return. How did they come about? They came about because of those businesses I referred to earlier. He had set up a number of businesses. It was quite a complicated state of affairs and I won't sort of overly bore you with the details, but in essence, he set up a number of businesses.
What then happened was that there was a civil war in Pakistan which resulted in the independence of Bangladesh.
and John had been very much part of the movement to have Bangladesh recognised as its own independent state. And as a result of that, he was approached in order to set up a bank called the British Bangladesh Trust. It was not a bank like Barclays or NatWest or anything like that.
what they call a secondary bank. They provide loans and other financial services for investors. And this is set up for the purposes of setting up businesses and investment in Bangladesh. There was a very damning Sunday Times report just before the bank was to go public
which resulted in the share sale not being taken up as it should have been. And as a result of that, Stonehouse bought a whole load of the shares using friends, family and so forth who bought up vast quantities of the shares. But ultimately, the bank wasn't doing particularly well.
The accountant started asking lots of questions. Various threats were being made by investors.
to the point whereby they were threatening him with bankruptcy and obviously bankruptcy for an MP is suicide because it means that you automatically lose your seat the fact around that time Geoffrey Archer as it happened to him and he'd lost his seat as a result of it so Stonehouse was terrified by that particular prospect terrified of the
the loss of face, a whole raft of things and obviously the personal implications in terms of his family. Am I right in thinking when John went missing, Barbara brought your father in to have a look at the company accounts? Do you know what he found? Yeah. My father had in fact been a director of the company. We were living up in Sunderland at the time and my father had been asked to be one of the directors in these companies.
And I think to my father's deep regret, he hadn't actually signed off as a director when he perhaps should have done because Stonehouse had taken over control, complete control of the company. And my father was simply just, for want of a better word, a sleeping partner. And that was it.
So, when Stonehouse disappeared, Barbara, as you say, had asked my father to have a look and he spent about a week going over the accounts, the various documents that the company had. And it's gradually dawned on him that there had been quite a number of significant transfers of cash over that particular time from bank accounts and to other bank accounts.
And my mother, who had been quite sceptical about Stonehouse's disappearance, and had sort of voiced her view that maybe he hadn't actually died. My father sort of phoned up my mother one particular day
and said, well, you know, the theory you had, well, I'm beginning to suspect that that might be the case. And indeed, it soon transpired that that, in fact, was the case. But obviously, my father wasn't to know at that particular time what exactly he had been up to. And it was only later that he realised, obviously, the full effect of what he'd been involved in.
What was the press reaction to John Stonehouse's disappearance and why do you think people and the press were so interested in the case as a whole? I mean, first of all, there was the disappearance. It was all rather bizarre and sudden. And very soon after the disappearance, there became, like typically with the press, lots of speculation about why it might have happened, how it might have happened.
And it came about that there had been issues with his businesses, that in fact somebody was about to set in motion a huge legal action against Stonehouse and the companies that he was involved in, in particular the British Bangladesh Trust. There was even suggestion that he'd been involved in some
cement company deal with the Mafia. And there was a body that was found encased in concrete, which ultimately they found wasn't his, but there was some suspicion of that. There was somebody who was found floating down the Thames.
very shortly after Stonehouse had disappeared, who had been linked with Stonehouse. So there was a huge amount of speculation about him. And then, obviously, his private life started to come out and they became aware of Sheila and
the whole house of cards starts to sort of tumble in terms of his various affairs, his businesses and it was only natural that he was a rich source of information for the purposes of the press to sell their newspapers.
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Well, my mum wasn't surprised. She clearly had her views about it. My father was given the mess that he had been left with. He felt hugely betrayed. The whole family felt a huge sense of betrayal when it came down to it. And indeed, as the criminal case progressed with John,
My father's involvement obviously became quite significant in terms of the, he had to provide evidence to the police and actually to the Department of Trade who also carried out an investigation. So he, you know, ultimately had to give evidence at court and was attacked by Stonehouse.
both through his lawyer, but also directly by Stonehouse in court. Stonehouse had sat his legal team at that point and ended up cross-examining my father directly. So, you know, he felt hugely betrayed by Stonehouse and I don't think he's ever really gotten over that particular aspect. It's easy to lose sight of the two women in this story, of Barbara and Sheila.
What were their experiences both publicly and personally? You've touched on the intense media scrutiny, but it would have been a very painful and distressing time for them. Absolutely. In particular for Barbara, you know, she had three children. I mean, his daughters, Jane and Julia, were in fact grown up, but Matthew was still at school.
So she had all that to deal with. And that sense of the betrayal is bad enough and it happens privately, but in such a public arena, it was hugely distressing. And, you know, we were very aware of that as a family, that that was the case. But Barbara was loyal to the last and she stuck with him. Even, you know, when everything came out, she stuck with him.
It's incredible to imagine a Prime Minister having to react to a story like this. What was the British government's reaction? They wanted to distance themselves from it as much as possible. He became a deep source of embarrassment to the British government, not only because of his conduct in terms of why it had happened, but also whilst he was in Australia, he sort of very much played the Australian government off against the British government.
There was tensions between the two sides. And indeed, he caused all sorts of embarrassment, was very public in his criticism of the Labour government and the lack of support he felt that they had provided for him. There's the government angle. There's also the Labour angle.
At various points in Labour's history, whether it's the Zinoviev letter or whether it's Jeremy Corbyn's questions after Salisbury, a persistent doubt has existed in their opponents' minds and to some extent in the public's minds about where its international sympathies lie. This would have been deeply damaging for the Labour Party, a legacy that would have affected elections way after Stonehouse's time. Did he feel guilty about the fact that he'd dredged all that up again for Labour? No, he's worried about it. Obviously, with the reality of what we know now,
He would have had that particular knowledge and would have no doubt been worried about all that being resurrected. And it was being resurrected. Wilson had to actually give a statement to the House in order to deal with the frolic assertions about Stonehouse and reiterated that they had satisfied themselves after investigation back in the late 60s that Stonehouse was not a Czech spy.
But it rumbled on and there were continued questions raised by various Conservative members of Parliament. Norman Tebbert was one of them. And no doubt Stonehouse had been worried about it and continued to be worried about it. I'm wondering if you have any personal memories of the trial back in the UK. What's the egging story? Yeah. Well, that was before the trial. That was actually when Stonehouse returned to the UK and
My mother was obviously incensed by Stonehouse's behaviour and the effect it had on the family. And she decided to go up to London
with myself and my four other siblings in order to, I think, have some sort of confrontation. I don't know exactly what was going through her head anyway at the time. Anyway, we got to London. We got to Bow Street Magistrates' Court because we were told that that was actually where he was going to be produced in order to be charged and formally remanded.
And my mother messed up with my uncle and they thought it would be a good thing to encourage myself and my sister to throw eggs at the cortege of cars that would then come down Bow Street Magistrates Court and into Bow Street Magistrates itself.
So we were armed with a couple of eggs each and stood there waiting for the cortege to arrive. It sped in, we bottled it because at that point we were surrounded by a huge amount of pressmen, photographers, all that, trying to get their scoop.
And, yeah, so we didn't, in the end, throw the eggs. We were, yeah, we dropped them. It's a high pressure egging. I'm not surprised, Julian. Well, we felt the pressure, but we were, my father had no idea that we'd gone up there. And my sister and I had been sort of left to our own devices, hanging around at both streets. And we...
I'd seen a newsman in front of a camera outside both streets and we sort of dangled around in view of the camera on the railings.
And my father had arrived home. We were nowhere to be seen at that point. My father arrived home, put the news on. First icing was obviously about Stonehouse's arrival in the UK. And the next thing he sees is his kids dangling around on the railings. So we had a few questions to answer about that.
You're obviously keen to set the record straight. What's the reaction been to your book amongst your family? Do you know what? It's not actually about putting the record straight, first and foremost. It was actually just to make some sense of what actually was happening at the time and to try and put into context why it was that Stonehouse did what he did. That, in essence, was why I wrote the book. It wasn't really to put the record straight.
Most of the family, my mother's been very supportive. She's provided a huge amount of information. And indeed, my siblings have all been very supportive on that side. It would be very interested. Most of the family have been interested. Again, some of the family have provided with information and their own stories about Stonehouse and the family and the rest of it.
So, yeah, that's been very positive. The one person, there's only one person really that has had a real issue with this has been Julia. But, you know, I accepted it because, frankly, she got wind of the fact that I was actually writing the book before it was published. And I received a couple of very testy emails from her.
I did respond once. I then started to type out a response and I thought, you know, life's too short. And I didn't bother in the end and just got on with writing the book. So I realised that there would be probably an issue. And, you know, she's been very vocal about her views about her father. She has been very vocal about my book. I have equally certain views about her book, you know,
Her book is, in my view, an apology for her father. That's what it is. It's trying to sort of, and no doubt for her own reasons, to make sense of why he did what he did and to think that he had gone mad or she put it bonkers. It perhaps provides an easy explanation to what would have been an incredibly distressing and upsetting time for her
and indeed for the Ryder family. So the fact of the matter is the evidence is very, very clear. You know, a jury were convinced by it beyond reasonable doubt. And indeed, you know, I've gone through
Huge amounts of evidence spoken to a number of people about this and putting my lawyer's hat on. And that's how I've approached it. When you look at evidence, you're looking at consistency. You're looking at patterns. You're looking at results.
the reliability of the account, all those aspects. And it all, to me, speaks volumes of being completely truthful account of what the Czechs were dealing with. Julian, thank you very much. This has been fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much to Julian. You can buy his biography, Stonehouse, Cabinet Minister Frauds to Spy, at all bookshops.
Next week, Alice is back in the driving seat for our first female protagonist, and a controversial one at that. Yes, I'm going to tell you the story of how a one-woman crusade against liberalism in popular culture snowballed into a mass movement in the 60s. Some people see her as the bigoted grandmother of censorship and cancel culture, some a misunderstood revolutionary. Whatever you think about her, it is going to be fascinating. It's the Queen of Clean, Mary Whitehouse.
This is the final episode in our series, The Spy Who Came Back From The Dead. If you'd like to know more about this story, you can read Julian's book, Stonehouse Cabinet Minister Forced to Spy, and John Stonehouse, My Father, The True Story of the Runaway MP, by Julia Stonehouse. I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford. This episode was produced by Millie Chew.
Our senior producer is Joe Sykes. Our executive producers are Jenny Lower Beckman, Stephanie Jens and Marshall Louis for Wondery.
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