Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy

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After a 6 year stint as a Justices Clerk, Julian, entered private practice in the Newcastle area in 1994 and soon gained a formidable reputation representing clients in a number of areas of work in particular criminal, family and public law. 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 took enormous energy, ingenuity and expertise (and some luck) to reveal to the jury the way in which the evidence had been tampered with or was just not there, the extent to which the Home Office expert witnesses had failed to disclose their findings, the possibility that there was an agent provocateur deep at the heart of all that unfolded. This has to be one of the most riveting books I have read this year, containing everything espionage, political intrigue, crime, sex and much more. Then he was found - on the other side of the world, in Australia - and his extraordinary story began to come to light: a Labour cabinet minister and a devoted family man; also in a long-term affair with his secretary, and a spy for the Czech State Security agency, who had committed fraud and attempted to fake his own death to escape catastrophic business failures.

Stonehouse finally resigned as an MP from prison after he was jailed on several counts of deception and fraud. Thinking his political life may be over if his party lost the next election Stonehouse, with the help of his nephew, lawyer Michael Hayes, set up several banking business ventures looking forward to a comfortable financial life. a vivid account' HENRY DE QUETTEVILLE, Telegraph 'Completely absorbing and told with huge compassion, integrity and skill' CAROL ANN LEE, author of The Murders at White House Farm and A Passion For Poison 'What a book. Usually crime/political genre books is not my preference however having heard of the Stonehouse saga through friends and reading articles online I found myself intrigued with the story and purchased this book . The prosecuting authorities became convinced that she had been an accomplice in his complex conspiracy to deceive.The narrative fascinates you from the beginning; even if you already know the story, it is written in a way that allows you to immerse yourself in a world full of spies, lies, and ambitions on the darker side of politics. As part of the elaborate pre-planning of his disappearance, Stonehouse had siphoned money into bank accounts in the names of his false identities. In addition to his mission, he spends the rest of the time talking about music and superheroes while learning how to salsa dance. He had for a number of years been on the committee of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association (LCCSA) and was Junior Vice President and Vice President of the Association. Thus began a long and peculiar back and forth between the UK and Australia – neither of whom wanted to be caught up in Stonehouse’s drama.

Rather than being another all-too familiar tale of political corruption, institutional blindness and vicious anti-Muslim prejudice, The Poison Cell is an affirmation of the power of truth, the strength of the jury system and the robustness of the British judicial process and of how human spirit can triumph in adversity. View image in fullscreen John Stonehouse with his first wife, Barbara, and children Julia and Matthew at their country home in 1969.Even for the strange 1970s, this stands out as one of the most surreal episodes of that turbulent decade. In 1998 Julian moved to London where he opened his own practice, one of the most progressive and exciting firms in London. It transpired that they had met up in Copenhagen during the period when he was supposedly dead, a reckless act by him and an encounter with bad consequences for her.