John Stonehouse's daughter calls for TV trial of runaway MP to settle spy claims
The daughter of runaway Black Country MP John Stonehouse has called for her father to be put on trial by television to nail once and for all allegations he was a communist spy.
The former Labour MP for Wednesbury and Walsall North has this week been the subject of a three-part ITV drama starring Matthew Macfadyen as Stonehouse, and Madfadyen's real-life wife Keeley Hawes as the MP's spouse, Barbara.
But Miss Stonehouse said the TV series was filled with misrepresentations, and bore little resemblance to what really happened.
Stonehouse, who rose to become Postmaster General in Harold Wilson's government, faked his own death in 1974, after having an affair with his secretary and becoming embroiled in financial irregularities. He vanished from a beach in Miami before travelling to Australia using a passport in the name of a dead constituent.
He was arrested by police hunting for Lord Lucan, and in 1976 he was jailed for seven years after being convicted of 18 charges of theft or deception.
The television series opened on Monday night with Stonehouse being the victim of a honeytrap set up by the Czech secret service.
But Miss Stonehouse said there was no evidence such an incident ever took place, and the idea actually came from a novel her father wrote in 1982 following his release from prison.
"What happened was Christopher Andrew, who wrote Defence of the Realm, the Authorised History of MI5, quoted 10 lines from this novel, saying 'he may have drawn from his own experiences'. That's like saying Stephen King writes about murders, therefore he must be a murderer'," she told the Express & Star
She said there were numerous other inaccuracies and anachronisms in the programme.
"My mother worked all her life, but whenever she was shown in the drama she was either ironing, doing the laundry or snooping around the house, and she was boring. That was not her at all.
"There was no white sports car, there are many family pictures of him driving a Morris or some other similar car.
"It showed him buying a big house (in the 1960s), but at that time we were living in a rented modern town house in Kennington.
"It portrayed us all as little children when he went missing, but I was 24 and my sister was 26, we were both working by the time we were 18 and I left home at 21.
"I didn't go to private school, I went to Grace Mount Comprehensive, which last time I checked didn't charge school fees."
Miss Stonehouse – who wrote a book entitled John Stonehouse, My Father, in 2021 – said her family had suffered greatly as a result of the spy claims.
She said the best way to settle the matter would now be to have a television trial heard by a judge and academics to see if the evidence stacked up.
"I'm calling for a TV trial of my dad," she said.
"The people who accuse him of being a spy can bring their paperwork, they can bring their witnesses, and let their respective lawyers put their case to a judge and academics to decide whether these claims are true."
The drama series Stonehouse concluded tonight, and will be followed by a documentary The Real Stonehouse which will be shown at at 9pm on Thursday.
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