politics
UK Justice Ministry Denies Posthumous Pardon for Christine Keeler's 1963 Perjury Conviction
Justice officials rejected the application to clear the model convicted after the Profumo affair. The decision came days after a conditional pardon was granted to Ruth Ellis in a separate case.
Jul 18, 10:19 AM·1m read1 source
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Christine Keeler was denied a posthumous pardon for her 1963 perjury conviction, GB News reported. Justice chiefs refused to quash the conviction despite accepting that she could not have received a fair trial because of prejudicial media coverage. Keeler was convicted after testifying in the assault case against Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon, who attacked her in April 1963.
Gordon was convicted in June 1963 and sentenced to three years in prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal in December 1963 after two witnesses, Rudolph "Truello" Fenton and Clarence Camacchio, came forward. The perjury case stemmed from the earlier Profumo scandal.
Keeler, then 19, had an affair with John Profumo, the 46-year-old Conservative war minister. Profumo denied the relationship in a statement to the House of Commons in 1963. A police investigation months later established that he had lied to Parliament.
Keeler was also alleged to have been involved with Soviet naval attaché Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, whom she knew through London socialite Stephen Ward. Last year justice watchdogs rejected an application to refer Keeler's perjury case to the Court of Appeal. The Criminal Cases Review Commission nevertheless accepted that unprecedented media coverage had prevented a fair trial.
The refusal came days after the King granted Ruth Ellis the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Ellis received a conditional pardon because she had suffered physical and emotional abuse from her partner David Blakely before killing him. Seymour Platt, Keeler's son, who lives in Longford, Ireland, with his wife Lorraine and their daughter Daisy, criticised the decision.
He said the Ministry of Justice had acknowledged an injustice but that refusing a pardon created a contradiction that cannot stand. Dr Felicity Gerry, a human rights barrister supporting Platt, said the recognition that victims of violent abuse and coercion should not suffer condign punishment marked a step forward.
