John Stonehouse, My Father

by Julia Stonehouse

  My father considered himself innocent of all charges and would fight them all the way. That stubbornness, and his pride, infuriated a court that demanded contrition. His decision to defend himself further infuriated Judge Eveleigh, who revoked his bail as soon as the defence began. (Bail conditions since 29th May had entailed reporting to the police station twice a day.) So my father then had to struggle with briefcases full of papers while handcuffed to another prisoner until he got to the unsanitary, overcrowded Brixton remand prison where he had to prepare for the next day at the Old Bailey. This is where he would reside for the rest of the trial. After a sleepless night, he decided against testifying in the witness box, questioned and under oath, and to instead make an unsworn statement from the dock, an old legal right that allowed him to speak without interruption or cross-examination from Crown counsel or questioning from the judge. This decision made Eveleigh even more irate, and my father then went on to make the longest dock statement in British history, six days long, by which time the Judge was apoplectic. On the last day of his summing up, Judge Eveleigh turned to the prosecutor, Mr Corkery, and expressed his displeasure about dock statements: ‘Its history is not entirely clear, but I believe a great deal of time and money would be saved and far less deception entered into if we considered, if not abolishing it, at least modifying it.’2 Eveleigh was later appointed to the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure and successfully lobbied for the abolition of ‘the dock statement’ – and an ancient legal right was brought to an end.

  By the time the jury took their seats at the Old Bailey in April 1976, they’d been through the Miami disappearance in November 1974, the Melbourne arrest in December 1974, the extradition proceedings in June 1975, and the committal proceedings in London in October 1975. They’d seen so many front-page headlines about my father, it must have been hard for them to think he was anything other than a lying cad and traitor. The front-page headlines included, in brief: ‘Riddle of Girl in Lost MP’s Flat’; ‘Lost MP Insured His Life for £119,000’; ‘Stonehouse Security Sensation’; ‘Concrete Coffin Probe’; ‘MP was Named as Spy Contact’; ‘Was Stonehouse working for CIA?’; ‘Missing MP was quizzed by MI5, says Wilson’; ‘Secretary knew secrets of missing MP’; ‘Missing MP ran his empire on borrowed cash’; ‘Did Mafia cut in on Stonehouse’s £6½ million deal’; ‘Why I Came To Hate England’; ‘Captured In A Dead Man’s Shoes’; ‘Yard Ready To Fly Stonehouse Home’; ‘Riddle Of Calls By Stonehouse’; ‘Stonehouse Insurance Cash Probe’; ‘He Did Talk to Sheila’; ‘What “S” Wrote to Stonehouse’; ‘Stonehouse quits as MP’; ‘Stonehouse: I haven’t quit’; ‘Stonehouse told: Make up your mind’; ‘Police hunt runaway MP’s secretary’; ‘Stonehouse Stole My Wife by Mr Buckley’; ‘Police Will Extradite Stonehouse’; ‘Body in concrete link’; ‘Astounding! Outrageous! Bloody unbelievable!’; ‘Sheila Buckley faces ultimatum – help or risk legal action’; ‘MP in New Spy Probe’; ‘Get him back, MP and secretary face extradition’; and ‘Mistress “was in plot with Stonehouse”’.

  Not once did anyone suggest that the bad publicity might have prejudiced the defendants’ right to a fair trial. We were way beyond that. By this time, everyone thought they were guilty of something. The spy allegation was the worst because that was a smear that couldn’t be wiped off, and it stuck to my father not only through the trial but right up to the present day. He referred to it in court, and the judge had this to say to the jury on the matter: ‘You may have noticed during this trial that I tried once or twice to stop him bringing in the contents of newspaper articles. Nobody asked to be told about the Chezk [sic] Spy story, for example, but there it was, you heard it was reported in the papers. Matters that appear reported in the papers are not facts proved in this court, and must not be regarded as such.’ Later, the judge said: ‘The Chezk [sic] spy. I told you when I began this summing-up, this was raised by Mr Stonehouse. You otherwise would not have heard about it, and the prosecution attach no importance to it.’ The idea that the jury ‘would not have heard about it’ was disingenuous because the entire country was well aware of it. So too were the prosecutors and judge, and all the establishment figures that stood, invisibly, behind them. Prejudice is something that those who have not experienced it can dismiss as just a word because it has no experiential or emotional content for them. But to the person who experiences prejudice of any kind it’s palpable, like a wall before them that can be touched. The judge continued, ‘It is relevant to this extent. Mr Stonehouse tells you that is an indication of the kind of attitude there was towards him, and the kind of pressure he had to endure.’3 What Eveleigh clearly didn’t acknowledge was that the jury may have had an ‘attitude’ and, equally importantly, so might he himself.

  The prosecution rode the wave of press misinformation to promote their narrative that Sheila was involved from the beginning and it was a two-person conspiracy, not a one-person mental breakdown. In the summer of 1975, the customs officer who’d opened my father’s trunk of clothes when it arrived in Melbourne had been interviewed by the police, so the prosecution knew that Robert Rowland Hill had seen no woman’s clothing in the trunk. But they didn’t disclose that to the defence, instead allowing everyone to believe what they’d read in the newspapers, that ‘Stonehouse Had Secretary’s Clothes Sent On’. Ian Ward’s February 1975 story had said that, ‘A trunk load of clothes belonging to Mr Stonehouse’s secretary, Mrs Sheila Buckley, 28 … was sent to Australia last November at about the time the Labour MP disappeared.’4 At the committal proceedings in October 1975, the prosecution presented a statement from Ward to the court saying my father had told Ward the clothes were Sheila’s, adding, ‘Having said this he took the black slip, held it to his waist and took a couple of dance steps as if he was dancing with its owner.’ The prosecution had told the press reporters when the salacious trunk story was likely to be addressed in court, but some had missed it, so, on the 30th, a member of the Department of Public Prosecution team held an impromptu press conference after the court adjourned, reading the Ward statement at dictation speed, using court documents. The judge censured them later, by which time it was too late. The next day the headlines included the Mirror’s, ‘The Night Stonehouse Danced with Sheila’s Undies’. The Daily Express headline was ‘Runaway MP’s “petticoat polka”’, and began: ‘In his bedroom John Stonehouse dances alone – holding Sheila Buckley’s black slip to his waist.’5

  There’d been so much in the press about Sheila being phoned from Hawaii, met in Copenhagen, and sending letters to Melbourne – all of which was true – it was hard for anyone to accept the argument that Ian Ward’s article about the trunk containing Sheila’s clothes was untrue. But, while the phone calls, meeting and letters all happened after the disappearance, the trunk was sent from London before, and apparently ‘proved’ that Sheila was in the runaway plan from the beginning and the Stonehouse story was about a conspiracy, not a breakdown. This made the trunk a crucial issue.

  On day 27 of the trial at the Old Bailey, the prosecution called Ian Ward to give evidence. Over the two days of the 7th and 8th June, and the morning of the 9th, my father cross-examined him about the trunk article, but Ward resolutely stuck to his story. Shortly after proceedings resumed on the morning of the 8th, the judge interrupted my father and basically told him to get a move on, or they’d be there until Christmas, at which point my father shouted back, ‘it is not my wish to be here until Christmas’, and the judge ordered him down to the cells to calm down. After fifteen minutes he was allowed to come back, and he apologised.

  Ian Ward and my father were the only two people who knew what had been said in the ‘unit’ when the trunk was unpacked. Now they stood facing each other in the Old Bailey. Ian Ward’s police statement, already aired at the committal proceedings, now became part of his testimony. It said: ‘I noticed at the time that he was unpacking a considerable number of items of women’s clothing which included a black slip, several dresses, what appeared to be a woman’s evening bag, a daytime h
andbag, some shoes – possibly two pairs of women’s shoes – and what appeared to be blouses. The latter were carefully folded up. I asked him who they belonged to. He said they were Mrs Buckley’s and having said this he took the black slip, held it to his waist and took a couple of dance steps around the bedroom as though he was dancing with the owner.’6 My father told the court his version of events: ‘My wife went back to England leaving her things behind. When Ward came and saw the trunk I made a joke, saying “Wouldn’t it be fun if they thought this was Sheila Buckley’s clothing”.’7

  It could be said that Ward simply misheard, but his version of events went on to paint a graphic picture of a man hiding his mistress’s clothes from his wife – aided by Ian Ward himself: ‘I immediately considered the fact that his wife was arriving the next day and remarked that he would be ill-advised to retain these clothes in his apartment. He agreed and then began packing them in a red Samsonite suitcase. He suggested that we leave the suitcase at my home in Melbourne. Subsequently we drove to my home and the red suitcase along with the contents were placed under the bed in my room. There it stayed until the day before the arrival of Mrs Buckley in Perth from Singapore. Early that morning I left with a photographer for Perth. Some time after my departure Mr Stonehouse called at my mother’s home. My mother was out at the time but the door was open. Mr Stonehouse left a note to my mother together with a bunch of flowers. When I returned from Perth the following day I noted that the red suitcase was missing from under my bed.’8 Ward didn’t know that the customs officer who examined the trunk when it arrived in Melbourne would later confirm my father’s version of events – no women’s clothing had been sent in the trunk from London. Sheila had not yet arrived in Melbourne, so they could not have been hers. The clothes belonged to my mother, who’d left them in Yellingbo, where the trunk first arrived from the customs warehouse. Her first trip to Melbourne was between 25th December and 16th January, when she’d returned to London, and she’d need the clothes again when she returned to Melbourne on the 6th February. So why would my father transfer her clothes to a red suitcase and hide it under Ian Ward’s bed at his mother’s house on the 5th February? That made no sense at all. But the court was so reluctant to accept this simple truth, witnesses had to be called to verify my mother had been in Australia before Ian Ward saw the clothes in the trunk and, given that her arrival had been on the front page of every British newspaper, this seemed to us somewhat unnecessary.

  The trunk story was causing a lot of fuss and taking up time. On the 10th June, the day after Ward had finished testifying, the prosecution decided they’d better admit to the defence that they’d taken a statement from the customs officer in Melbourne, Robert Rowland Hill, the previous year. They knew that what Ward was saying in court was directly contradicted by Hill’s statement, which confirmed there was no women’s clothing in the trunk when it arrived in Melbourne, but embarrassing though this late disclosure might be, non-disclosure could be worse because it might give grounds for an appeal. So it was that my father’s solicitor had to set about getting a statement from Robert Hill, in Melbourne. It took some time for a variety of reasons, but eventually the statement was received and read out at the Old Bailey on the 20th July. It was the last piece of evidence to be submitted at the trial: ‘I am employed by the Federal Bureau of Customs at Melbourne, Australia. On the 30th December, 1974 at Brambles Bond, Melbourne, Australia I examined trunks and cases. One of these items was shipped in the name of Joseph Arthur Markham and marked J.A. Markham. I saw this item of baggage opened in my presence and under my supervision. I did not see a blouse, a black slip or any ladies shoes or any article of ladies clothing. The item was passed for collection as being non-dutyable.’9 Although these were some of the most important words heard at the trial they were completely ignored by the press at the time, and over the subsequent 45 years, and nobody can see the Robert Hill statement because the files pertaining to the trial at the National Archives at Kew, five in total, have nothing whatever in them from the defence side. Files one to four consist entirely of prosecution documents. File five is top secret – it’s been redacted for 56 years. Following a Freedom of Information request, I’ve been told it’s a psychiatric report – but I won’t be able to read it until 2033.

  The Robert Hill statement conflicted with the narrative the press had been exploiting for seventeen months – Sheila was in it from the beginning – and they weren’t about to admit that. Plus, it was immediately followed by Sheila’s Statement of Mitigation and the press were agog because this was the first time Sheila had spoken throughout the trial. For 45 minutes her voice could hardly be heard above thunder, the sky went black and a desk lamp had to be found for the judge so he could read his papers. Hers was the story that would be reported the next day. The Sun’s front-page headline was ‘I Thought I Was Having His Baby’, the Daily Mirror had ‘Our love-child scare, by Sheila’, and the Daily Express ‘I thought I was pregnant – Sheila’.

  Judge Eveleigh made it clear to the jury that it was not their business to consider mental health issues. In his summing up, he told them: ‘His condition, the pressure under which he was is a matter relevant to you to take into consideration when deciding whether you can infer he intended this, or he intended that, or was acting dishonestly and so-on, but if you come to the conclusion that he did intend to steal, if you are satisfied of that, your verdict is guilty, whatever you may conclude drove him to it. The mother who steals from the gas meter is nonetheless responsible for stealing even though she did it because she was driven to distraction by her young children and the poor state of their clothing. Those are matters which can be taken into consideration in mitigation by the court, if appropriate, but they are not matters which affect guilt itself.’10

  At the end of the trial, Corkery spent four days summing up the prosecution case. He told the jury ‘there was no question of insanity in the case, or even diminished responsibility. Mr Stonehouse’s conduct was based entirely on survival, not psychiatric suicide as one doctor for the defence had suggested.’11 Four psychiatrists gave evidence, but the judge said: ‘Every person is presumed to be sane and accountable for his actions until the contrary is proved. There has been no attempt in this case to prove the contrary.’12 The difficulty faced by the defence was that my father only saw the psychiatrists after he’d been arrested. Dr Gibney, who my father first consulted on the 1st January, said this: ‘I diagnosed a depressive illness. There was severe reactive depression, which means a reaction to the circumstances in life.’13 But, said the judge in his summing up, ‘The prosecution say it is not surprising as he had just been discovered and was, in effect, in the custody of the police.’14 They were trying to say the only reason he was crazy in January 1975 was because he got caught by the police on 24th December 1974. That’s what made him crazy. Dr Gibney said my father had carried out a form of psychiatric suicide and that ‘he had begun to cast around in a furtive inappropriate way for ways out, and for these reasons he evolved a bizarre scheme, that of establishing a new identity. He described it as a relief.’15 The judge’s response to this was: ‘Doctor Gibney said there was evidence that Mr Stonehouse had been suffering from depression which had disturbed his judgement to some extent and led him to a degree of irresponsibility. However, in Doctor Gibney’s view he was aware of what he was doing although he seemed able to justify his actions to himself. That means to say he told himself, well, what I have done is all right for me.’16 If Eveleigh had been the judge at an inquest after, hypothetically, my father had thrown himself off a cliff, he would have said he was just being selfish.

  The psychologist Dr Heywood said: ‘It does happen with hysterical personalities that a change of identity is used as a form of escape.’17 The judge reminded the jury that under cross-examination from the prosecution, ‘[Dr Heywood] agreed that the state in which he found Mr Stonehouse was possibly as a result of the failure of his plan, and the fact that the press were hounding him.’18 Once again, the court was tr
ying to press the idea that he wasn’t crazy before, he was crazy because he’d been arrested. Professor Watson told the court: ‘It seems to me quite understandable that he should feel less depressed and less anxious in moments when he could function as Markham. In that sense it seems reasonable to say it served a psychological purpose. It is possible to disappear in order to get relief and not for any other reason.’19 Doctor R.D. Laing said: ‘There was anxiety and a sense of guilt, which, on the story given to me, there was no reason to feel, and there was no way for Mr Stonehouse to escape from the pressures.’ In terms of the Markham personality, Laing said: ‘We have here a parallel personality running alongside Mr Stonehouse.’20 Another witness was Maurice Miller MP, a GP my father casually consulted at the House of Commons, along with Dr John Cronin MP, and any other doctor MP he could find wandering down the corridors of power who’d give him a prescription for the Mandrax or Mogadon I saw lined up in rows of tablet bottles in his bathroom cabinet. If this trial was happening today, experts would be brought in to describe the mental effects of these two drugs, taken individually and in combination, over a two-year period. But this was 1976, when those drugs were handed out like candy, and they didn’t even come into the conversation.

  To us, the family, the prosecution’s drive to say my father didn’t have a breakdown was offensive. In Australia, during the first six months of 1975, my mother, brother and sister witnessed crazy incidents with my father behaving like another person altogether. But by the time he got to the Old Bailey in April 1976, those who came into contact with him were a step removed in time from his dual personality madness and it was easy for them to blank the breakdown out of the equation. On top of this, my father was proud and wouldn’t let his weaknesses show if he could help it. He worked hard, looking as competent and mentally in control as anyone else. The essential problem – the breakdown – thus became several steps removed from current reality and people forgot about it, or ignored it, or chose not to believe it.