Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy

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This is the biography of John Stonehouse, Labour cabinet minister and Privy counsellor, spy for the Czech State Security (StB) and convicted fraudster. It’s a nervous, hand-to-mouth existence, and the closest you get to having companionship and a place to belong is by going along to the mosque, not so much for the prayers as for the free food and the football. The story certainly had some sensational elements to it, especially the fact that Stonehouse had accepted money from an East Block country during the Cold War. He is a Higher Rights Advocate (criminal and civil) and a Court and Police Station duty solicitor and a member of the Law Society’s’ Child Panel (having been a member since 1998). it's really the power of his personality that drives the book, which is ripe for dramatic interpretation of some kind, either television or film.

As well as expertise in relation to computer misuse offences, Julian also specialises in providing advice to Communication Service Providers and others in relation to their obligations under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, and the GDPR Data Protection Act 2018. The reconstructed story of Stonehouse flying around the world after his disappearance, then again to meet his mistress in Scandinavia, is also interesting. Stonehouse, a young MP, and eventually a cabinet minister, decided to throw himself into the business world as a way to guarantee an income in the likely case his party would lose the next elections. When it was noticed that Stonehouse hadn’t collected his belongings, it appeared that he had vanished from the face of the Earth.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Julian Hayes is a partner at BCL who specialises in corporate and financial crime, surveillance and information data protection law. Stonehouse was ahead of his times in many ways, yet decadent, deceitful but also very engaging and intelligent . In January 2003 a 17 year-old boy was sleeping in North London when the police ‘acting on information received’ hammered on the door.The daughter contends that the accusation that he was a traitor to his country is the worst calumny heaped on her father. Even a daughter trying to rehabilitate the reputation of her father can’t entirely escape acknowledgment of monstrous behaviour.

Some conjectured that he had been the victim of a mafia hit, while others speculated that he had been smuggled to communist Cuba on a Russian submarine. He has also gleaned much from family members and lawyers involved in the trial and from the trial documents and other government papers held in archives in the UK and Australia. Then he was found—on the other side of the world, in Australia—and his extraordinary story began to come to light.

A fascinating look into the mind of a conflicted politician/humanist who reacted strangely to a crisis point. Julians’ specialism in serious crime, public law and family law can be seen in the following array of cases listed below. Stonehouse finally resigned as an MP from prison after he was jailed on several counts of deception and fraud. This is the definitive biography of Stonehouse, written by Julian Hayes, who, as the son of Stonehouse’s nephew and lawyer, Michael Hayes, is uniquely placed to tell the story of this charismatic but deeply flawed politician. I would have liked more detail about that, because it’s something I was less aware of that point in his life.

However, what this book really delves deep into, is the never-seen-before File 40375 from the Czech Secret service archives- that exposes Stonehouse, as yes, a Soviet Spy.I read the paperback edition and have since compared to the original hardback as reference was made to some editing issues and it seems those have been dealt with. Even for the strange 1970s, this stands out as one of the most surreal episodes of that turbulent decade.