Shaminder Nahal

Head of Specialist Factual

Channel 4

124 Horseferry Road

London SW1P 2TX

17 June 2022

Dear Ms Nahal

“The Spy Who Died Twice” – Channel 4 - documentary broadcast 9pm, 9 May 2022

Thank you for your email of 10 June confirming your receipt of a copy of my Complaint to Ofcom dated

27 May 2022. I expect Keely Winstone has told you that she has written a book with Philip Augar called

Agent Twister and said that it is fully referenced, reassuring you that she is a reliable source for

information regarding John Stonehouse. But that book contains disgraceful misrepresentations

regarding the spy issue, of which this is an example from page 98:

“Little does Parrot know that Stonehouse has been handing over ministry documents that detail a new

way of reinforcing structural plastics with carbon fibres, complete with scientific formulas. The British hope this alternative to metal and fibreglass will revolutionise the construction of aircraft and, as the document states, the Royal Aircraft Establishment is hoping to patent it for the nation.”

Their reference for this statement is:

“Carbon Fibres for the Reinforcement of Structural Plastics’ report, Mintech (Ministry of

Technology)/RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment), StB (Czech Security Service) file 680220”

The number at the end is the reverse date system Winstone/Augar use in their book to identify StB

documents – in this case indicating 20 th February 1968. They do not provide the actual StB document

numbers in their book but I can tell you this reference relates to four undated pages in the StB file,

documents 21968_43075_021_0011/12/13/14, shown below.

As you can see, this 4-page leaflet does not contain what Winstone and Augar say it does – “complete with scientific formulas” – either singular or plural. It only details the physical properties of the new material, comparing these to those of glass fibre and steel. And as you can see on the last page, it has three references showing that much of this information is already in the public domain. Contrary to Winstone/Augar’s saying it is “documents” (page 98) and a “report” (ref 12, page 368), it is in fact an advertising leaflet. There is nothing secret about it; it is neither “documents” nor “a report” and it certainly does not contain any “scientific formuals”, as Winstone and Augar assert in their book.

To make a simple comparison, it’s as if Winstone and Augar had represented an advert for a new iphone listing its features as the actual, pre-patent, secret designs (plural) of that iphone. In this case, they have represented the properties of the new material as “scientific formulas”. Surely they can see the difference? I certainly can, as I expect you can. But, knowing full well their readers are unlikely to have access to the StB source, Winstone/Augar have deliberately misrepresented the StB documentation for the purpose of promoting their ‘spy’ narrative.

This innocuous and highly public advertising leaflet could have been picked up at the Farnborough Air show – an air trade show regularly attended by personnel from all the embassies, east and west, as well as industry professionals. As a teenager I regularly attended the show and can tell you that there were stands with all kinds of promotional information leaflets, of which this appears to be one. The leaflet is undated but Winstone and Augar have allocated it a date, which appears to be arbitrarily linked to StB document 21968_43075_021_0021 which is a short note about the arrival dates of a UK trade delegation to Czechoslovakia which included Mr Stonehouse, Mr Chinnock, Mr Slater and Mr Barker. Perhaps this leaflet was given to the Czechs by someone in that delegation (such delegations were always accompanied by MI6 by the way) but it is not professional to make that assumption. This is a minor point, but symptomatic of Augar/Winstone’s working practices. The far greater concern is that they have wrongly asserted that “scientific formulas” were given to the Czechs by my father.

I shall of course be writing to Augar/Winstone’s publishers about this and other issues.

As far as your Channel 4 documentary is concerned, in my complaint to Ofcom, at 18:50 and 18:52 minutes I referred to forgeries. On page 168 of Agent Twister, Winstone and Augar write:

“He closes his office door and fills in passport application forms for Markham, using the same hand he employed for correspondence with his Czech handler Holan”. 

The total amount of “correspondence” they refer to is in fact one letter-card with 6 words plus two capital letters at top and end (Ref: StB documents 21968_43075_020_0013/0014) with the address in lower-case, plus one envelope written in capitals to the same address (_020_0007). In my complaint to Ofcom I said “If Keely Winstone has not acquired an opinion from a handwriting expert then that would be a dishonest use of this envelope in her documentary because she knows from my book that the Stonehouse family, who have a multitude of handwritten sources to compare it with, know this envelope to be a forgery. She needs to produce any such handwriting opinion acquired prior to broadcast because if she cannot do so, putting this item in a documentary is a disgrace.”  But it appears from her book, page 168, she has not acquired any professional handwriting comparison opinion, saying instead that, presumably on the judgement of Winstone and Augar themselves, my father uses for the passport application “the same hand employed for correspondence with his Czech handler Holan.” So now Winstone and Augar are handwriting experts, it seems. Could you please enquire of Keely Winstone whether they acquired a professional opinion or not. I believe Channel 4 deserve clarity on that point.

As you are no doubt aware, representatives of dead people cannot sue for libel or slander as the deceased no longer has a reputation to defend. However, I have been advised that I can pursue a legal case against a broadcaster who misrepresents a deceased person at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg because precedent has been set in the case of Putiskin versus Ukraine (16882/03). In that case, the name of the deceased father was almost unseen in the media being objected to and so the case was lost but Channel 4 have stated categorically in the documentary The Spy Who Died Twice that John Stonehouse was a spy for a communist country. To challenge Channel 4 on this would be a valuable exercise on behalf of other people too, to assert the rights of deceased persons not to be exploited for the sake of a lucrative ‘good story’. Please make it clear to any distributors you intend to sell this documentary to that if they too broadcast this slanderous documentary then I shall include them in any future litigation.

Thank you,

Yours sincerely,

Julia Stonehouse

cc: Louisa Compton – Head of News and Current Affairs, Sport and Factual

Ian Katz – Chief Content Officer

Ofcom: Lord Grade, Kevin Bakhurst, Maggie Carver, Melanie Dawes