So, was Macmillan hapless? Powerless?A bungling old fool? Ignorant of the ways of the world or just adept at avoiding responsibility? The public wasn’t happy with any of those options. A nation wants its leader to show, well, leadership.
Macmillan was of course known by his 1957 catchphrase ‘You’ve never had it so good’, said during an optimistic speech to fellow Conservatives at a Tory rally in Bedford. It was his way of painting ‘a rosy picture of Britain’s economy while urging wage restraint and warning inflation was the country’s most important problem of the post-war era’.15
When he came to power, Macmillan told the Queen he thought the government might not even make six weeks but managed to rapidly restore the country’s fortunes and confidence. In 1959, he led his party to one of the Tory Party’s greatest electoral triumphs. The general election of 8 October saw the Conservatives enjoy their third consecutive victory, and for the second time, increase their overall majority in Parliament with a landslide victory of 100 seats. He was clearly capable of leading.
Certainly Davenport-Hines does not paint Macmillan as a fool. Rather an ambitious and cunning politician who had used the threat of his retirement from politics to nab the top post for himself.16 The author describes Macmillan as a politician who mastered both ‘appearances and realities’.17
Perhaps it’s closer to the truth to say Macmillan had his suspicions, but so wanted to believe the best of Profumo that he ignored what in hindsight might have been obvious. Others might think that this ‘playing the fool’ was also an act. It was a criticism that would later be levelled at Boris Johnson, suggesting that if you play the bumbling clown when there are serious accusations against you and your ministers, including rule breaking during the Covid lockdown and corruption in the awarding of lucrative contracts, you won’t be blamed or held responsible for them. Is feigning ignorance just one of the tricks in a politician’s playbook?
By late June, however, the British public appeared to have moved on from the Profumo Affair as Macmillan was sent messages of support in their thousands18 and the press was focusing instead on the Great Train Robbery.
Macmillan’s popularity also had a boost from President Kennedy’s visit in June, with Mrs Kennedy reporting that her husband thought highly of Macmillan. To show his support, Kennedy apparently ignored the usual State Department budget and bought Dorothy Macmillan a golden dressing table set with her initials on it.19
The Denning Report, which condemned Ward for being immoral, casting doubt on Keeler’s claim to have been in a relationship with Ivanov and downplaying security risks, also helped to some extent, although it did state that it was the duty of the PM and his colleagues to deal with the situation, which they failed to do.
The scandalous headlines didn’t completely stop once Macmillan moved on, however. On 19 July 1964, the Sunday Mirror ran a headline hinting about the existence of an incriminating photograph involving a lord and a gangster. A German magazine, Stern, which did not have to obey British libel laws, outed the two as Boothby and Ronnie Kray. Unlike the Profumo scandal, the story blew over after Boothby denied the relationship and issued the Mirror with a writ, forcing the paper to apologise and pay £4,000 damages. Boothby was also, of course, the long-term lover of Dorothy Macmillan, and the former PM was probably very glad to no longer be in office.
But with Macmillan’s wounding came Conservative Party failure. Horne says the impact of the Profumo Affair on the British government was ‘unprecedented’.20 The Conservative government lost the next general election in 1964, and Harold Wilson took over to become the youngest Prime Minister since 1894.
Chapter 20
A Pardon for Ward
But what of the people forever damned by Profumo’s indiscretion? During his trial, Ward saw the world of glamorous women, high society and political discussions that meant so much to him implode. And his suicide has meant that his version of events was stymied. But is his part in the story at an end? Perhaps not.
Most people might imagine that everything there is to know about Ward’s trial is out there in public, just as the trial itself was. However, much of what went on behind closed doors before the trial happened is just as important to those who might wonder why Ward was arrested and charged with offences under the Sexual Offences Act in the first place. The official transcripts are also still sealed, despite it being what newspapers at the time called the ‘Trial of the century’. The eight-day court case gardened massive public interest, with crowds gathered outside and standing room only in Court No. 1. And it continues to intrigue, disappoint and anger many today.
The main players of the trial included Judge Sir Archibald Marshall, who was a Cambridge-educated Cornish-born Liberal Party politician, while the prosecuting counsel was Mervyn Griffith-Jones, a tall and imposing lawyer adept at cases involving morality, since he had acted as prosecuting counsel in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial three years earlier. He famously asked the jury if they would like their own young children (and wives or servants!) to read such a book.
Ward’s barrister, who was not a QC, was James Burge, one of Ward’s patients. He fought the case on three grounds: that the police efforts in building the case were out of all proportion to the offence, that it had been prejudiced by widespread publicity and that the prosecution was based on moral outrage and not evidence.
However true this was, it wasn’t enough. Scottish journalist and Panorama presenter Ludovic Kennedy has argued that James Burge was unable to compete with the prosecuting counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones, explaining that Burge was in fact a very nice man, and far too nice to be pitted against Griffith-Jones.
Kennedy wrote several books that questioned convictions in a number of notable cases in British judicial history and penned The Trial of Stephen Ward in 1964. He attended the trial in person and said Griffith-Jones approached the trial as if he was the ‘guardian of private morals’ for the state, rather than a Crown prosecutor focused on criminal actions.1
Griffith-Jones ended his closing speech to the jury by saying that they might find Ward thoroughly immoral because he was getting girls for himself and his friends, and if that was proved, then it was in the public interest to return a guilty verdict.2
Eminent QC Geoffrey Robertson was at the forefront of a long-running campaign to get Ward’s conviction overturned, calling it modern British history’s ‘worst unrequited [sic] miscarriage of justice’. In December 2013, Robertson sent an application for Ward’s conviction to be overturned to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).3 In the book version of the appeal, Stephen Ward Was Innocent, OK: The Case for Overturning His Conviction, Robertson argues that Ward’s trial should never have happened in the first place, that it was unfair and that the CCRC should refer the case back to the court of appeal.
The first question to ask is: why was Stephen Ward on trial?
In his report, Lord Denning suggests that Ward came to the notice of the police via anonymous communications. He goes on to suggest the police then examined the situation to see if there was anything to investigate, found there was and took statements that formed the case against Ward.4 The findings led to him being arrested and brought to trial.
But if Lord Denning believed this, he may not have been correctly informed. Robertson says Ward was nothing more than a scapegoat chosen by Sir Henry Brooke, who was the Home Secretary at the time. It was Brooke who summoned Roger Hollis, the head of MI5, and Sir Joseph Simpson, the Police Commissioner from Scotland Yard, and insisted that Ward was charged. It was not an investigation started by the police in the normal manner. Consequently, Ward’s phones were bugged, he was put under surveillance and Ward’s patients, friends and acquaintances were approached and questioned in an attempt to dig up dirt to form a case. Known local prostitutes were also interviewed and Keeler was questioned twenty-four times. By the end of the investigation, the police had interviewed 140 witnesses, for what was an apparently simple case of pimping. A massive amount of care and attention, and resources, went in to securing this one particular conviction.
But why did Brooke want a scapegoat? Because the pressure from Opposition politicians and the press had raised security concerns and made the establishment look untrustworthy. Ward knew about Profumo’s relationship with Keeler, and how Ivanov was connected to both. He knew Profumo had lied to his government too. But once disgraced, Ward’s word would be worthless. Ward’s ‘promiscuity’ made him an easy target for the police.
Ivanov also bitterly disputes that Ward was a pimp. He thought the accusations were outrageously untrue, but that they successfully distracted the public’s attention from important individuals who did not want to be involved in a public scandal, referring to Ward as a scapegoat, and the behaviour of those who did not support him as that of traitors. He goes on to say that the authorities killed Ward because they were afraid of his revelations, that Ward knew too much about things that must never be revealed.5 A smokescreen of sexual intrigue at Ward’s trial worked in two ways, it discredited Ward and provided a distraction from political inadequacy.
So, what are the arguments for Ward’s conviction being overturned? Robertson provides many.
For Robertson, one of the most important points is the role Christine Keeler played in the trial. Namely that the evidence she gave in the Ward case could not be trusted as she was later proved to be a perjurer at Gordon’s appeal hearing. There it was shown that she had lied to police about the presence of Fenton and Comacchio at the scene of her attack, and also about John Hamilton-Marshall assaulting her during an argument before Gordon arrived, possibly being responsible for some of the injuries she claimed Gordon caused. No doubt Keeler did this to ensure the arrest and conviction of Gordon, whom she was understandably scared of, and to protect her friend’s brother and the men Fenton and Comacchio, who both had their own reasons for not wanting to be involved in a police case. The police may also have encouraged Keeler to present as strong as case as possible, to make their work in convicting Gordon easier. There was no doubt that Gordon was a violent criminal who needed to be caught and convicted. The police knew about the role Hamilton-Marshall had played in Keeler’s injuries, as he confessed to them himself around 6/7 July. The police were not accused of concealing this evidence at any point.
Being proven to be a perjurer in the Gordon case made the statement Keeler gave to the police for the Ward trial unreliable and put her credibility as a witness in doubt overall. In truth, many of the witnesses for the prosecution had been ‘encouraged’ one way or the other to help the police in their enquiries. Keeler’s perjury conviction, however, set her apart as a proven liar.
Ward’s trial had already begun when the appeal over Gordon’s conviction was being held. The police team on both Gordon’s case and the Ward trial included Detective Sergeant John Burrows. As the Gordon conviction fell apart, it was obvious before the Ward summing up on 30 July that Keeler’s statement could now be considered incorrect. However, the jury was not told exactly why Gordon’s appeal had been upheld, which Robertson says was a deliberate non-disclosure. Robertson goes as far as to say that the Lord Chief Justice told Ward’s prosecutor and the Old Bailey judge hearing the case that the fact Keeler lied in the Gordon case did not mean she had lied in the Ward case too. The judge also directed the jury to disregard the overturning of the Gordon conviction as they decided Ward’s fate. This behaviour, Robertson says, unfairly undermined Ward’s defence.6
Ultimately, after the Ward trial was over, Keeler was successfully prosecuted for perjury. And while this fact could not have been presented at the time of the Ward trial, it could have been grounds for appeal after Ward’s conviction, meeting all the legal technicalities that the law requires, says Robertson.
Robertson also notes that both Keeler and Rice-Davies had been in discussions with newspapers to sell their stories and this likely affected both what was said and what was reported. It’s also likely that a conviction for Ward would make the stories of more interest, and perhaps more valuable, and certainly less likely to bring with them the risk of libel.
A second reason the Ward conviction should be overturned, according to Robertson, is that the proceedings began not with a complaint to or action by the police but with a demand from the Home Secretary Sir Henry Brooke. It is a rule of our constitution that ministers may not direct the police in operational matters. Therefore, Robertson argues that it was an abuse of process for a government minister to initiate a case against Ward for political reasons.7
To support his argument, Robertson points to evidence contained in the leaked minutes of a meeting held on 27 March 1963. Robertson argues Brooke directed the Met Police Commissioner to begin the investigation into Ward after MI5 informed him that there was not enough evidence to convict Ward under the Official Secrets Act. This ‘unconstitutional’ move to find something with which to charge Ward allowed for the tapping of Ward’s phone, a watch on his home and the intrusive questioning of all of Ward’s clients, acquaintances and friends. There have also been allegations that Rice-Davies was coerced by a spell in Holloway for a driving licence charge, and that another witness, Ronna Ricardo, who was interviewed nine times, was told her baby would be taken away from her and that her younger sister, who lived with her at the time, would be sent to a remand home.8 Ricardo later said she was intimidated into agreeing that Ward asked her to bed visitors to the Bryanston flat.9
Ward was convicted of ‘pimping’, which assumes that Keeler and Rice-Davies were prostitutes. Both women and Ward denied they were, and although they may have received money from boyfriends they did, and perhaps crucially did not, have sex with, they fell outside the legal definition of a prostitute. Rice-Davies also already had a weekly income of £80 from boyfriend Peter Rachman. However, politicians had labelled Keeler and Rice-Davies as such, and those opinions had been repeated in the press. The public, led by this, believed the women to be working girls, which explains the hostile treatment they received at the hands of the crowds outside the Old Bailey.
Ward was charged with living ‘in part’ on the earnings of prostitutes, but the judge was incorrect when he told the jury that this could mean just a tiny fraction of any money they made as a sex worker. The judge was actually required to direct the jury on what ‘in part’ meant but failed to do so. In fact, Robertson argues that the jury should have instead been informed that they could only convict Ward if he was living mainly or significantly on the earnings of prostitutes.
In his cross-examination of Ward, Burge asked the defendant about his annual income. Ward replied that he was earning about £4,000 from his osteopathy practice and another £1,500 or so from his drawings. This would give him a total yearly income of between £5,000 and £6,000. Burge also asked if Ward would really need to carry on working as an osteopath and artist if he was, as the prosecution suggested, procuring women for such powerful and wealthy men. Ward said he would not.
In his book The Naked Spy, Ivanov says that the year he met Ward was a fruitful one for Ward, with his friend’s fortunes visibly improving. It was the year Ward had his first solo exhibition at Leggatt Bros, a gallery in Duke Street. Ward had treated Hugh Leggatt for backache and the dealer and gallery owner was so pleased that he had offered Ward his own exhibition. Knowing that portraits of well-known people would be a better offering, Ward gave himself six weeks to sketch any VIPs he could, starting with Paul Getty. Ivanov says Ward sketched Harold Macmillan, Sir Winston Churchill, Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, Chancellor Derick Heathcoat Amory and Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell. Ward also drew Rab Butler, Nubar Gulbenkian, Sophia Loren, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, A. P. Herbert, Stanley Spencer, Sir John Rothenstein, Lord Shawcross and Mylène Dymengeot. Clearly, Ward’s career was at a high point.10
It was also made clear in court that Keeler lived at Ward’s flat for a very low rent, and that she often borrowed money from Ward, ate food provided by him and used the facilities in his flat such as the telephone. Ward’s earnings were established to be far more than Keeler and Rice-Davies, and in fact, it was the case that the young women more often than not lived on Ward’s larger and more reliable earnings, paying him some money to only ever partly cover their use of his home as and when they could.
Philip Knightley and Caroline Kennedy, the authors of An Affair of State (1987), also pointed out in their book that while Griffith-Jones successfully proved that Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies took money from men they had sex with, in Christine’s case it was as little as £50 from Charles Clore, £20 from Profumo and around £100 from Major Jim Eynan, who she met, not through Ward but while she was working with Rice-Davies at Mayfair’s 21 Club. They also showed that while both girls at some point gave money to Ward, both girls often owed Ward – one way or another too – and usually far more money than they ever paid him. It was therefore the judge’s misinterpretation of the phrase ‘living in part’ and his misdirection of the jury to consider that meant Keeler and Rice-Davies giving Ward a little bit of money here and there to partly cover rent and household bills constituted him ‘living off’ them that would allow the jury to find him guilty of the charges.
Overall, Robertson says the evidence wasn’t enough to prove a link between any money Keeler or Rice-Davies gave to Ward and the money earnt from their alleged prostitution.11 This insufficient evidence should have meant that Counts 1 and 2 were withdrawn from the jury, and that Counts 4 and 5 should never have been put before them. Robertson reminds us that a trial judge has a duty to stop an insufficient prosecution regardless of whether the defence has realised and asked for this to happen.
