‘Canoe man’ case wasn’t the first

Dec 30 2007 by Sunday Sun

I READ recently about a man from Hartlepool being found alive after five years of being presumed dead.

The world’s media may be focused in the North East of England now, but during Christmas Eve 1974 they were all in my home town of Walsall, when John Stonehouse MP was found alive in Australia.

He had disappeared in November 1974, when his clothes were found off a Miami beach and everybody thought he had died while swimming. There was real sadness and shock in the town because John was a popular and dynamic Midlands MP.

It seems just a memory now, but I assume the older generation in both Walsall and Hartlepool and the wider country remember vividly when John was at the centre of world news.

At his trial at the Old Bailey, John was charged with 21 offences, including theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud and deceit. He spent seven years in prison and came out of prison in 1979 a broken man. Yet, during his 18-year Parliamentary career as Colonial Minister, Technology Minister, Post Master General, etc, he did much good and was highly respected.

The media coverage and subsequent trial was the first of its kind in the UK. One observer called it “trial by media”.

Who can ever forget John Stonehouse? When I put my exhibition on about him at Walsall Library in 2002 it was very popular.

I had spoken with his family and friends for my research and what came over more than anything was the human cost of such a flawed plan, which went terribly wrong.

I always think of the final lines of the film Road to Perdition when the boy states: “People often ask me if my father was a good man and I always say: ‘He was my father’.” Happy Christmas and 2008 — IAN PAYNE, Walsall, West Midlands.