Ian Handford: Ward a whipping boy for humiliated government

Having established his osteopathy practice business in Cavendish Square London Stephen soon befriended the famous cartoonist and socialite Arthur Ferrer who virtually guaranteed a new client base across the spectrum of show business, model agencies, aristocracy, politicians and even Royals. Having married the actress Patricia May Baines said at the time to be "a true beauty from a prosperous middle-class background" - the marriage would last only until 1949 and was reported as failing through Stephen's preference to "dominate rather than participate".  

Within a decade a friendship with the shy Lord Astor joined the orbit of nightclubs and girls and soon his Lordship would rent Stephen a cottage on the Astor Cliveden estate, which became ideal for partying of socialites. In 1949 Stephen had met the 17-year-old model Christine Keeler working at the Murray Cabaret Club Soho. By 1961 Christine was to be a regular visitor to Cliveden where she would meet senior Parliamentary Minister John Profumo. The press at the time were pretty ignorant of a Keeler-Profumo affair although by now Christine was a regular visitor to Ward's house at Wimpole Street and his rented Buckinghamshire cottage. Interestingly, it was Ward who eventually informed MI5 that the Russian Ivanov had met John Profumo (our War Minister).
 
Parties at Cliveden abounded, being worthy topics for newspaper scandal. National journalists clamoured to report many famous men with an eye for the ladies becoming regular visitors to Cleveden. But now the more serious question arose being - pillow talk and its effect on National Security. Newspapers merely wished to increase their sales whereas stories involving our War Minister led to him being forced to deny any "affair" until having to resign due to multiple liaisons becoming too much to bear for a Minister of State in disgrace.

The extra-marital affair with Christine Keeler saw her eventually admitting she had slept with Ivanov Yevgeny, shocking UK Cabinet Ministers who saw that the issue of ‘pillow talk’ meant there was a real security risk. They now targeted Ward as a scapegoat suggesting "he was ever a pimp". After being charged by the police later the country would learn he was officially connected to M15. Meanwhile, the High Court had decreed he had been living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies which was always denied.

The girls certainly had lived rent-free in Ward’s Wimpole Mews house and had only ever contributed to household bills not for "added services". Yet in 1963 at the Old Bailey, a much biased Judge summed up badly before granting Stephen bail. He admitted Ivanov was a friend and that he had indeed stayed at Wimpole Mews and the rented cottage yet in realising the Russian defector was a security risk Ward had contacted MI5 voluntarily.    

Released on bail, Ward immediately purchased a quantity of self-administered barbiturates taking a lethal dose which sent him into a lethal coma and hospital. The following day the Court prosecutor Mervyn Griffith Jones summed up Ward as pursuing the very depths of lechery and depravity before the (hostile) Judge urged the jury to return a guilty verdict but "in absence". The sentence was to be postponed until the defendant was fit enough to re-appear. Yet Stephen Ward never reappeared as on August 3rd he died, leaving a written suicide note which confirmed: "I’m sorry to disappoint the vulture but I feel the day is lost. A ritual sacrifice is demanded and I cannot face it."

The prosecutor and Judge had won the day much as Stephen had predicted. Later in his book "The Trial of Stephen Ward’ the journalist Ludovic Kennedy concluded: "Ward was a whipping boy for the humiliations the Government had suffered as a result of the Profumo Affair."