Have You Seen My Passport: John Stonehouse

An idealistic British MP had it all, until a series of bad decisions nearly destroyed his career. But that didn't stop the bad decisions, it only made them worse.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes, Elizabeth, how you doing? Yea doing well? How you doing?
I'm crazy you seem to have good energy. Great, I
am great. Do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Are you?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I was hoping you're asking me that. Yeah, you know you.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
You and a lot of other people make this the
internet joke that the world's like Timeline went askew, and
David Bowie passed, sure, Okay, so I've I've heard that,
and I'm like, sure, whatever, if you guys want to
believe that.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I think that's fun, that's cute.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
But yeah, I think it's interesting now because of Jimmy
Page connection with David. I didn't know about David Bowie
and Jimmy Page. You know, they're both British kind of
like esotericas weirdos and the guys who are like into
like the dark arts and things like that. Turns out
that they were. They were both into Alistair Crowley the magician,

(00:52):
like like low key Satanist, the wickedest man in the world,
and so apparently they were friendly in the seventies until
David Bowie became convinced that Jimmy Page and these young
women that were around him, because he was really into
like his like zoso uh under witchcraft and underage girls

(01:13):
and like heavy and like the dark Arts witchcraft. At
this point, so David Bowie became paranoid that Jimmy Page
and his what he called his satanic coven intended to
steal his bodily fluids, okay, so that they could use
them to make the Antichrist. Wow yeah, and so that
he didn't want to hang out. And so also it
got so bad he went full Howard Hughes and he

(01:35):
started keeping not just his bodily fluids, but his urine,
another bodily fluid, in his fridge for protection. I don't
know if he knows how babies are made, but David
Bowie was keeping everything that came out of him on
his own person or in his fridge so that Jimmy
Page couldn't get his hands on it or having one
of his witch's sneak hits and steal it and make
the Antichrist. So apparently David Bowie believed he had the

(01:56):
power in him, or Jimmy Page had the power in
him to draw out of him the ability to make prist.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
So maybe by he passing he did actually skew the
world because he was that's true. Figure. So there you go.
There's some now nails for that argument. That probably is true. Yeah,
pin that up that they were, you know, trying to
be at all track. It does track. It's definitely ridiculous,
super ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Passports
understolen identities? Because you know what that never ends?

Speaker 6 (02:25):
Well unfortunately, I mean sometimes.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh, I know, I heard that. I heard that too.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
I'm not going to get political here with you today.
I mean, everything is political if we're honest, but that's
not happening here. I am, though, going to talk politics.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, late twentieth century.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
British politics line, I know, I really am. I was
having a discussion with someone recently about true believers.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Is this person? No, I'm talking about like like the
Leslie Nopes of the world.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Yes, yes, the ones who see the political process as
this like divine, beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yes, the hall monitors of the world.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
Yes, the ones who put their heart into what they
see as like service and solutions.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
High school vice presidents, And it used to.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
Be that you could pretty honestly say that, like both
sides of political arguments wanted the same end result, just
different ways to get there. That's a true believer's mindset, right.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, definitely, it's a centrist true believers mindset.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
Yeah, but I think the true believer thing is very delicate.
It's hard to sustain. So, like maybe i'd say, like
Jimmy Carter is a big example of someone who held
firm in their beliefs, never never dabbled in corruption. Like
say what you will about his policies or his actions,
but like he had integrity most Yes, yeah, Well, I

(04:12):
mean the thing is, you can't say most having integrities
like being pregnant. Either have it or you don't. Right, Oh, okay,
so I my belief she can't just have like a
little like really, don't be a little pregnant.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
You don't think you have degrees of integrity.

Speaker 5 (04:25):
I think that how you do one thing is how
you do everything.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
I agree with that, but I think you can have
more or less integrity. I don't know. I think it's conditional. Yeah,
it's interesting. That's an interesting spit.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
That's that is corruption though it's everywhere. Yes, it's always
been the and for a lot of people, like most people,
it's just too tempting expected.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
And that's how the world went exactly.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
So, like you and I were recently talking about a
guy that we know who's so perfect that you think
there must be something sinister hiding in their sense. You
believe like he's smart and handsome and fit and dedicated,
like insightful and.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Fair because every is going to be a jerk and
he's not.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yeah, he's had so many opportunities to be an a
hole along the way, this hasn't taken him yet.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yes, specific in me.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
But those those true believers, the ones we want so
badly to represent the best in us, we fall for
it almost every time. We believe in them, we support them,
we rely on them to bring us to like a
common vision, but like you know, humans, we fall short,
some more publicly than others. Yes, so I'm going to
talk to you today about a true believer, okay, with

(05:31):
a fall from Greece boiler alert.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
I love those.

Speaker 5 (05:34):
So remember a long, long, long long time ago I
told you about a drug runner who hit out for
decades in Australia.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, it was a very long time. I was a
much younger man. You were a younger woman. Yes, I
can barely remember us. It was cool, was that? Yeah,
it was cool. It was cool. It was an innocent
time weeks ago.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
So cool that I have another one for you. So
some of the elements are similar, but most are way different.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh I love that way different elements. So cool because
it's like it's Hollywood. It's the same, but different, different
crime categories.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
Okay, So the guy today is John Thomas Stonehouse, Stonehouse,
John Thomas Stonehouse. He was born in nineteen twenty five
in Southampton, England.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I hear that happened.

Speaker 5 (06:13):
English name, John Thomas stone House, very English. So he
was a dude as an only child, okay. And he
was brought up in a very like left leaning socialist
working class.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Family, the Hope of the stone House.

Speaker 5 (06:24):
Yes, his dad was a post office engineer before he
became a dockyard engine fitter, a dockyard acting secretary of
his union, n good Maid Union. His mom was no slouch.
She started off as a scullery maid, but then she
went on to become the Mayor of Southampton a seat

(06:45):
on their city council.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's serious time. She's a serious business.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
She's a bouse. He was a super super smart student
and like really charming and charismatic. When he was sixteen
he joined the Labor Party. He loved his country. Sure,
he became a trainee pilot in the Royal Air Force.
That got him access to the London School of Economics.
So he studied economics there, got a degree. But he

(07:12):
wasn't just all about academics there, like he had a
wild side, or did he?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, he was chairman of the chess club too. I
don't know why I follow every time.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Oh, and he was also in the Labor Party society there,
so everyone knew he was going to go into politics.
And that's all he talked about, like when he wasn't
talking about chess. He wanted to be in parliament. He
was articulate, like I said earlier, charming, charismatic, perfect for
the gig.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
He wanted to be an MP, an MP see american.
You know something about non American anglifier. I'm telling you.

Speaker 5 (07:45):
He joined the cooperative Movement, which was like a socialist
you know, retail and finance collective.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yes, I'm familiar.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
Yeah, And that's where he met Barbara Jones Smith. He
was twenty two, she was fifteen.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Exactly, do you want to become a Stonehouse?

Speaker 5 (08:02):
She was like, what's up, little girl? They got married
a year later, in nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
She was sixteen.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
Yeah, you know, we're coming out of the warriors. I
guess she hit the age of consent whatever, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Okay, yeah, it was a very different expectation.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
Yes, So the two of them they went on on
like a socialist world tour.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
They traveled to all these youth camps across Europe, talking
to young people about their idealist vision for cooperative societal structure.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Do we still have those youth camps? Sociable?

Speaker 5 (08:32):
So it was like lefty network, like, you know, and
what goes on at the socialist youth camps?

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I think we both know, Yeah, It'soresoresbeth.

Speaker 5 (08:44):
In nineteen fifty two, the two of them moved to Uganda.
Whoa yeah, So for two years Stonehouse managed the Ugandan
Cooperative Society and when his time there was done, the
couple moved back to England and he was like stoked
on the possibility that he'd crafted with fellow socialists all
across the globe.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
I bet sounds like he's got a strong network. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
And so he and his wife they didn't have a shilling,
just dreams. Baby, I was gonna say he didn't have
a you know, a dime, like of course. Yeah, so
Stonehouse he knew what he had to do, what he
had to do. He ran for.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Office, finally get in there.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
He was like working all these odd jobs to survive.
You know, he got to put pudding on the table totally,
but his eyes, eyes were on the prize. In nineteen
fifty seven he got elected as Labor and person time
for Weinsbury. Now he lost the first time Weinsbury. Later
there was like some boundary changes and that became walls
all north.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay, I believe he's like a rising star.

Speaker 5 (09:44):
He has a beautiful wife, three kids. He's tall. Look
at that dude, tall guy, handsome.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
He said he was in politics.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
I got articulate, impeccably dressed.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
So here's the guy. Everyone's like, wow, how does he exist?

Speaker 5 (09:57):
How does he has all these chances to be in
a hole. Yeah. So and people are like, you know what,
that guy. One day he's going to be Prime minister.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh for really he was tall. They're like, I'm going
to hang my hope.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
He's like eight foot six, hang my hopes on this,
this this sucker, this long drink in my future. He
as a member of Parliament, he distinguished himself.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Okay, speeches, well he's so well spoken, eloquent speech about
white Man.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
Sorry, he had these eloquent speeches and he was like, therefore.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Insummation and he was like, oh my god.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
He advocated for development aid and like Commonwealth trade.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
He's like, therefore trade. They never heard anything like this.
He spoke out about the British presence in Kenya. Oh yeah,
he was like the mau mouse. That was the thing.

Speaker 5 (10:56):
Not good.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I don't like it. Look at that. They're getting mad.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
And like a really elegant way.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Therefore he went to Oxford, where for wis you know
who's in what sees? So he bibbity babbadi boo.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
He quickly rose through party ranks. In February of nineteen
fifty nine, Stonehouse went to Rhodesia on a fact finding
tours roads. He's like, there are facts there and I'm
going to find them.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
They ain't gonna be one Da Navid.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
So while he's there, he condemned the white minority government
of Southernrhodesia which is now Zimbabwe.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, that's all they had, Yeah, from one man's gave.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
This speech to Southern Rhodesia African National Congress and he
like was in there talking rallying indigenous Rhodesians to stand
up for their rights against the white minority. And he's like,
you know what, the British Labor Party fully supports you
in that. And that didn't go over so well. He
was immediately deported, banned from the country. They're like, and

(12:02):
stay out of the walls.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
We support what, we don't even support you. No more,
out of there.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
So then he comes back right and he gets another
government gig. He's a junior Minister of Aviation.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
They let him back. Here take a baby fly boy,
why not.

Speaker 5 (12:16):
Yeah, he fought for the government to buy British made planes.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
That someone else is like, no French place, but they.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Went with Boeing seven oh seven out of the US
of a USA.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
You know.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
He was like, no, make get the little like you know, MG.
Mosquito that we made, I don't know what. And he's
like he like talks smack on his colleagues in the office,
like kind of insinuating that they were on the take
to get these boeings. He later became the Minister of Technology.
Oh that's a great title. Sure. March of nineteen sixty

(12:51):
eight he put together this technology cooperation between Britain and Czechoslovakia.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
Was this because he made so much noise about planes
or like, fine, you can be minished something else.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
I don't want to out here, And he's like there,
he's like he organizes for this exchange of like specialists
and information research facilities network between Britain and Czechoslovakia. Later
that year he moves on up. He becomes Postmaster General.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
I guess that's a move up.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
He put him in charge of the General post Office,
which at the time managed the British telephone and postal systems.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
All right, and posts at networking. Here's the biggest networks.

Speaker 5 (13:33):
But have exactly and like people can go pay their
bills there, let's do this stonehouse. He got credited with
like all this modernization efforts, but he really wasn't like
a barn burner, renegade, maverick whatever.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
No, No, this man born in the nineteen twenties, was
not a great with the technology.

Speaker 5 (13:50):
He was like, you know what, AI is the future
and they're like shut up, Grandpa. So Stonehouse ambitious but
also kind of restless, like he he just he didn't
want just political power. He at this point he wants money.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Oh he's never gotten. Yeah, He's like, I was wrong.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
He's like, I kind of like being rich.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I love Yeah, I was. I was ever around them.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (14:15):
I would love you know, like collective actions. But like
I also, these suits are really.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Choice with one my one wild life, I would like
find fabrics. Political power and money kind of go hand
in hand once you're around donors and you see what
they have. Look, can't that be me?

Speaker 5 (14:30):
So many politicians of every single stripe, every kind, they
start out as like one of the common folk. I'm
like a worker or whatever, and then suddenly they're millionaires.
It's like consulting, gigs, insider trading, speaker fees, Harlan crow,
whatever it is. They get that money, right, they get it.
So in pursuit of wealth and prestige, Stonehouse started like

(14:52):
dabbling in business ventures. So by the late sixties, he'd
founded multiple companies in Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan
and the Caribbean. And these weren't like basket making companies
like companies. No, they were export companies, which means they
were actually shell companies used to shuffle money around in

(15:13):
all these like complex, suspicious ways. So rumors started swirling
about his improper financial dealings, and then it got super sticky.
A defector from communist Czechoslovakia.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Oh no, oh no.

Speaker 5 (15:27):
And in nineteen sixty nine he said that the Czechs
had recruited Stonehouse as an informer.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
He's like, he's a spy, oh yike. And and for
the Labor Party that's always a damn.

Speaker 5 (15:38):
Nation, right exactly. So Stonehouse he denies everything. He begged
the Prime Minister Harold Wilson, I.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Was a socialist. Look at me, I got all these
shell companies. I'm exploiting the banglades. How much more of
a capitalist I got to be?

Speaker 5 (15:56):
He's like, Harold, please, I'm innocent. He said the claims
were based. Harold Wilson prime Minister believed him. He was like, okay,
so these sort of accusations they popped up, like you're
saying with the Labor Party, and they popped up a
lot during the Cold War.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's a bunch of Soviet Union spies in this are
most of.

Speaker 5 (16:16):
The most of the accusations were baseless because it was
easy to like erode trust with it. Yoh yeah, but
it worked. The erosion works. Stonehouses political reputation totally damaged.
So the Labor Party lost the nineteen seventy general election
and there was no seat for him on the opposition
front bench, a major defeat for him. And like you know,

(16:39):
this was his identity is personality, and he's this wreck
when this happens. So luckily he had something else to
occupy his time chess business and chess, you know, the
export services, right, remember one.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Of his global wealth go on, Well.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
One of his businesses was in Bangladesh, like you were
saying in nineteen seventy one, their Bangladesh is in this
brutal fight for independence from Pakistan and.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
That crazy flood.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
Yes, Stonehouse's instincts to fight for the underdog and what
was right were like rekindled. He got super involved in
the Bengali cause, oh wow, and like deeply invested in
their victory and their agency, and the people loved him
for it. When the war ended in Bangladesh and won
its independence. Stone House was made a citizen of the

(17:27):
new State of Bangladesh, who honorary Bengali.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
He was real. Oh yeah.

Speaker 5 (17:31):
He helped the people set up the British Bangladesh Trust
and that was a bank that would provide services for
Bengali people in Britain. But it was structured and operated
in kind of a shady way.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
So the press they started digging into it, and pretty
soon so did investors from the fraud squad and the
Department of Trade and Industry in London. Oh so like bye,
so long investors. The pressures are mounting. His business empire
is like teetering towards collapse. He's being screwtined by auditors,
fraud investigation, like peeking around the corner. He once again,

(18:06):
he's looked down on. He's out of a job, super bummed.
He's in a bad place.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yes, a dear moment.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
Let's take a break, put on a cupa, let's put
on a cuppa. Let's gather ourselves and carry on and whatnot.
And when we return more Stonehouse, Stonehouse, Zaren John Stonehouse.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
But before you get into that, you know that that
whole thing about keep calm and carry on the British
tradition from like World War two. I was young and
I misread it. I thought it was keep clams and
carry on. So I've got this storehouse of clams where I.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Can move something that smell. That's what that is. Storehouse,
my bushels of plans. I'm carrying on.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
Well, you know, you could start an export business.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Good point, like John Stonehouse, carry.

Speaker 5 (19:11):
On, He's a stone House. Let it know, Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
So we followed this.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
Chap from his humble beginnings meteoric rise in the British
government to his freedom fighting, somewhat shady business dealing.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yes, getting involved in Bangladeshi liberation.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Politics, accusation of being a spy for the Czecho Slava.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Throw that in there for fun. The world's most interesting.

Speaker 5 (19:36):
Much debate about whether that was true or not. So
there's this historian from Cambridge, Professor Christopher Andrew two first names.
He's one of the few people who were able to
see them I five file on Stonehouse, and he literally
then went on to write the book on m I five.
This book in two thousand and nine, The Defense of

(19:57):
the Realm, The Authorized History of m I five and
he shared a lot of those documents there. He said
that Stonehouse one hundred percent spied for the Czecho Slade.
I feel like that's a solid case for it. If
he says that, and it's in the files.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
I think we can put the case to bed now.

Speaker 5 (20:13):
Julian Hayes Stonehouse is great, a grand nephew. He wrote
a book Stonehouse Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy. He told The
Guardian a Czech agent befriended him and he worked on
him over lunches and dinners. If they'd said, John, we'd
like you to spy for us, he'd have said no.
But a slow, insidious, step by step persuasion to cooperate worked.

(20:37):
He was not a spy in the sense of James
Bond or the novels of John lecre but he provided
the checks with information and got a lot of money
from them.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
He knew what he was doing.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
I would love it if it was like he sits
down to like lunch the first time and they're like,
we'd like you to spy for you.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
He's like, right here, I love you exactly.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
Actually, like they worked each other because you know whatever.
By nineteen seventy four, his situation totally desperate. He was
having an affair with his secretary. Oh no, yeah, that's again.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
His political career stall gone much well.

Speaker 5 (21:12):
He'd been recently re elected are tors I'm not kidding you.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
He he him.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
Terrible MP for Walsall North constituency. But he was like
never ever going to get higher than that. His companies
are unraveling under a web of debt and all this
messed up accounting. According to the Australian Broadcast Corporation Quote,
a wine company that he owned called Connoisseurs of Claret
Limited had lost more than one hundred thousand US dollars

(21:48):
equivalent to more than a million today in a single year.
Another of his businesses, a trading company Global Imax, was
forced to close its office in Bangladesh and the managing
director resigned, claiming he was owned money. But it was
a quasi bank called London Capital Group LCG, which John
had started two years earlier in the hopes of cashing

(22:09):
in on a property boom that appeared to be in
the most difficulty. Attracting investors and customers to LCG had
proved trickier than first thought, and John had eventually resorted
to deceptive creative accounting to keep the business afloat that
eventually attracted the attention of the Department of Trade and
Industry in Scotland. Yard According to The New York Times,

(22:30):
Stonehouse had set up twenty four accounts at seventeen banks
and past checks involving hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Damn, So seventeen banks and he's just doing all this
on paper with checks, yes, tiding it around, hiding it around.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
So he's like facing exposure, possible prosecution.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
His one man Ponzi scheme is about to come undone.
I'm my own investor.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
From what do you do?

Speaker 5 (22:54):
He devised an audacious plan. What is that He's going
to fake his own desk, assume a new identity, escaped
the law public disgrace. Okay, So sometime around nineteen seventy.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
That he's going to take his affair with him. Oh yeah,
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
He gets the name of a constituent who had recently died.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh my god, Joseph Arthur Markham.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
They're about the same age, right, So Stonehouse took Markham's
information and got himself like from.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
His wife, Like, did he go to the family was like.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
I need the birth certificate, and then he created a
whole story for this guy. The actual Markham was a
foundry worker, and new Markham, he's the invented version, was
an international business.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
He owns the foundry. Yes, he was.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
An export consultant and he had bank accounts in London, Switzerland, Australia.
But like one fake identity wasn't enough. He got intel
on another local man who just died, Donald Clive mildoone
like the name. Yeah, So Stonehouse took the money he
had in the shell corporations and various shady accounts and

(24:01):
he moved it all into accounts in these guys' names.
So yeah, and he had sort of like a psychiatric break.
He'd go about his days as Markham. And the character
he created was this honest man, like a quiet guy, private,
almost who he wished he had been.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh interesting, like the chess grand Master.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
Got to an.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
Interesting experiment like creating an identity of who you wished
you'd been, or who you could have been but opted
not to be totally.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
We call that acting.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
And yeah, and he just drives it around town.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
When people do that in their real life, it's a
very interesting psychological almost experiment.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yes, and that's that's what he's doing.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
So he's going around as good boy Markham and it's
really reducing his anxiety. It's calming him down to be
this other person for him, and it made him really
hate john Stonehouse like a lot.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
So he went the other way with Yes.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
Usually people reside in their one identity and they feel
the guilt and the shame because they know they aren't
what they're presenting and getting away with.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Right, he does the other one. He invested in himself,
in his future, his new self, and then it's like,
you know who's real jerk? Me me, I can't stand
that guy.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
So he decided that his wife had his family and
his friends and the British people, I'll be better off
without john Stonehouse.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
But he didn't want to end his life ritualistically.

Speaker 5 (25:20):
Yeah, he decided to end Stonehouse and move full time
into Markham.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
This is like a psychological that I'm telling you.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
It's like you know they do like, oh, we're going
to do an encounter therapy kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yes, it is like one of those severe versions of therapy.
Let's do it, let's let's each do it anyway, change
her names, start a new podcast with new names.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
He had his wife set up these like.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
New podcast one to get there.

Speaker 5 (25:45):
Yeah, it was like it was climbing up like my
neck to get into my ear. Like wait, don't forget
about like imagine this.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Like a better fun.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Like a Japanese calligrapher where they become a master and
they change their names.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I can do it all over again. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (26:05):
So he and his wife set up some like huge
life insurance policies for him and the kids, and I
feel like that's always a red flag request.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Okay. Yeah, policies were.

Speaker 5 (26:15):
Worth around like two hundred thousand US dollars at the time,
which is like one point five million today.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
I don't know if he told her to get one
for like yourself too, So I don't know what's worse,
get one for yourself too, or like and watch your back,
or like be left out and behind we're all gonna die.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
You don't need one, won't You won't be here to
spend it.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
Barbara Stonehouse, the wife. She later said that she didn't
know anything about his plans to become someone else.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Do you believe?

Speaker 5 (26:45):
Uh? Yeah I do?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
I trust you read see they like she said that they.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Opted for the policies because of the IRA, the Irish
Republican Army. Yeah, so that there. I mean, this is
in the middle of the troubles. Their head was snapping
threats against his kids and lots of bomb threats and
then like actual bombs. This car got blowed up.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Oh, I think it all the way back and the.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
Cops sound a bomb planted in the house directly next
to their place.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
I thought he was being like dramatic, like, you know,
I've got the troubles now, what.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
Do you think that adds to the stress too. Hell yeah,
so there may be some truths you're sitting.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'll try you.

Speaker 5 (27:26):
So Stonehouse. He went on with his days. He didn't
let on that he was planning to assume a new identity.
He traveled to Miami for business with an old barrister
friend of his, James Overton.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Charlton, Wow, how did they make them minds?

Speaker 5 (27:40):
They were there to meet up with some American bankers,
you know, chat about a business.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Opportunity chatting Greg. Yeah, I want you just.

Speaker 5 (27:49):
Picture It's November twentieth, nineteen seventy four. You're sitting in
a hotel restaurant in Miami, Florida. You and the businessmen
from an investment bank are sipping cocktails waiting for your
friend and associate, John's Stonehouse to arrive at dinner. You
Zarin are James Overton Charlton. You tap a swizzle stick

(28:12):
against the glass containing your gin and tonic. Beads of
water slowly roll down the sides and pool on the
white tablecloth below.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
You check your watch.

Speaker 5 (28:21):
Stonehouse is usually very punctual, so this is a bit odd.
He's thirty minutes late. The bankers are getting restless as
you get up once more to use the phone at
the maitre d stand to call up to his hotel room.
You dial his room number and wait. It rings and rings,
no answer. You head back to the table and excuse yourself,
explaining that you're going to go check and make sure
your friend is okay. You tell the gentlemen to go

(28:42):
ahead and order for themselves, enjoy their dinner. It'll be
on you.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
They demure and opt to leave, telling.

Speaker 5 (28:48):
You they'll be in touch tomorrow. They hope John's okay.
You agree and walk with them toward the lobby. At
the front desk, you ask for someone to come up
to the room with you to open it up. You'd
like to perform a wellness check. The manager agrees and
grabs a security guard. The three of you take a
silent ride up to the room together in the elevator.
The Musaic's saucily samba ing out a wordless tune. You

(29:11):
arrive in front of the room, and the security guard
flips through a large loop of keys. Your stomach is
in knots. Life has been troubling for John lately. He's
been dealt a number of bad hands. As the way
you'd put it, you have seen the toll, the scandals
and setbacks have taken on him, the pressure he's under.
You worry that either he's been stricken down by a
massive heart attack courtesy of the stress he's under, or

(29:33):
even worse what you truly dread and slightly suspect that
he's done himself harm. The security guard gets the correct
key and opens the door to the suite. It's silent, John,
You call you, and the manager and the guard enter
the room. Everything looks normal. A jacket draped over a chair,
jeans and a crumpled heap next to his suitcase, dress

(29:54):
shirts hanging in the closet, His toiletry bag on the
counter in the bathroom. You walk over to the nightstand.
The only sound in the room is the crackle of
the security guard's walkie talkie. The manager stands at the
door of the room with his hands clasped behind his back.
You look down at the bedside table and you see
John's passport and his watch, plus a stack of one
hundred dollars bills, eight of them, and some travelers.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Checks where was John.

Speaker 5 (30:18):
The three of you head down to the lobby where
you asked the manager to call the police. Your friend
has vanished.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Aaron so sad. I'm broken up a stone house. He's
nowhere to be found.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
I was like waiting for that to be like the
open sliding glass door onto the balcony and like the yeah,
they all look out. Yeah, but that like you went
into the ocean, and you'd have to have like an
ocean or somebody.

Speaker 5 (30:43):
But he wouldn't be able to collect insurance on him
if that's the case, if he jumped from the balcony.

Speaker 6 (30:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
So I'm not good at this.

Speaker 5 (30:52):
I am so stone House can't find him. There were
some people who said they saw him in the afternoon
of the dinner on Miami Beach, and they said he
was like wearing swim trunks and a handsome fellow, and
he headed They saw him head out into the water,
and so they searched the beach authorities. They found his
clothes like these nice trousers and a shirt, very neatly

(31:12):
folded in the corner of a beach hut, and so
it looked to everyone like Stonehouse had drowned. He went
to Davy Jones's locker.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
He like that the Australian Prime Minister who went swimming
out to and they never went out into the brainy deep.
They're like, why we should teach these guys to swim. Exactly,
you should try it.

Speaker 5 (31:30):
So now he's like assumed dead. So news organizations they
ran obituaries. There was no body, but that didn't mean anything,
like you could have been washed out to sea, but
not really so, according to the ABC quote, when his
body failed to wash up after seventy eight hours, police
became suspicious. Normally, those who drowned at sea were discovered

(31:50):
within a couple of days, but there was no trace
of Stonehouse anywhere. They began to suspect foul play, and
a new working theory emerged that John Stonehouse was still alive,
possibly being held prisoner by gangs. The theory was given
more prominence when Miami police found traces of blood and
hair inside a quote concrete overcoat, a signature method of

(32:12):
mafia burials.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Ah so they're like, oh.

Speaker 5 (32:16):
The cement shoes Chicago. Yeah yeah, yeah, so like the
mob captured him, tickled him, tortured him, and then put
him in cement through.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Fatal tickle fight.

Speaker 5 (32:27):
Yeah, they're like, he got got by the mob.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
This is actually a lot of good news for those
of us who have dreams about being tossed over aboard
of a boat that because they were a jerk to
somebody who.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Owned a boat. They're going, Wow, I'm in the Caribbean.
What am I going to do? And all the white
tip reef sharks are gonna eat me. Apparently that doesn't
happen because the authorities are assuming you're gonna get hit,
You're going to reach the shore within two three days.
All you got to do is stay float for.

Speaker 5 (32:49):
I think they're saying that, like it's the body just
I guess if you float, Like.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, I'm thinking at least there's a chances I can.

Speaker 5 (32:54):
Know you know what it could just you know, next
time it happens, or.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
At least part of me will make it, part of
part of you make.

Speaker 5 (33:00):
It to the bottom line. People thought he was dead,
so Barbara, she's like grieving. Parliament mourned his constituency, prepared for.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Like a special election. But Sarah Stonehouse wasn't dead.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
No, we figured that let's take a break, let's hydrate,
let's stretch, and when we finally make it back and
we're reunited, I'll tell you about where Stonehouse took his
little narrow English behind.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
All right, here we are Stonehouse, Stonehouse.

Speaker 5 (33:49):
The last we heard from John Stonehouse, he was dejected,
desponded in Miami home business, goes for dip, gets around,
or maybe he crossed the mob and they put him
in the water for good. There's that too, Yeah, But
to the world barrel, he's ded dead due So like judge,

(34:11):
you know what, we.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Know better than that. We're smarter than that, skeptics both.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
I also told you up top that I was going
to tell you a story about a guy who faked
the spoiler alert little too late, too fast, too furious
on that one. So now people, you did really see
him head out for a swim that faithful day, Yes,
did they, but he actually, yeah, he actually swam down
the beach aways and he got out of the water
in front of a neighboring hotel, and it was there

(34:37):
that he'd previously stashed some clothes, money, and his prized possession,
the Joseph Markham passport.

Speaker 6 (34:44):
Ah.

Speaker 5 (34:45):
So he gets dried off, cleaned up, goes into the
other hotel, grabs a cab, goes to the Miami.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Airport, hoping that no one will remember him.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
Yeah, and he had previously stashed a full suitcase and
a briefcase full of phony documents there an airport locker.
So he flashed his Markham passport, boarded a flight to Hawaii,
and from Honolulu he flew to Singapore. From Singapore, he
flew to Denmark, and from Denmark he flew to Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne,

(35:15):
arriving December tenth, nineteen seventy four, so twenty days after
his disappearance. Like, you know, I don't know if he
was stopping at banks along the way.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Who's to say, I mean, I guess you're you're like,
you're figuring nobody will be on all these flights so
if any of.

Speaker 5 (35:29):
You read one of them, he didn't just travel as Markham.
So for some of those flights he used that Muldoon passport.
So he's mixing it up, muddying the waters, confusing the
field mice, swapping the placement, jiggling the old jam job.
Back in London, it wasn't just barbing the kids for morning.
His death, the death of forty nine year old Stonehouse.

(35:51):
There's also that young secretary. He was stepping out his
twenty eight year old Shila.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Buckley side piece. Yeah, so she put on.

Speaker 5 (35:58):
A good show. She's crying about her dead boss, but
she knew the real story. In fact, according to the
BBC quote, some of her clothes had been packed in
a trunk and shipped to Australia a month before. She
had transatlantic telephone calls from him, and she had also
sent him semi coded letters through one of his two
Australian banks. You know we call that out here, accomplice.

(36:21):
I want to know what the semi coded it was
like in pig Latin.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Latin.

Speaker 5 (36:29):
So before you knew it, Buckley, she's in Australia at
Stonehouse's side, and for weeks he's playing the role of
this quiet British businessman settling down in Melbourne. But financial
transactions started raising suspicions with Australian bank staff and authorities.
So even though he may have been spying for the checks,

(36:53):
he was super bad at covert operations and he.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Just left this trail of like evidence and discrepanty season
his way. He's no, he's not.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
So he took his two false passports and he went
around transferring huge amounts of money between banks and he
thought this would like throw people off his scent. So yeah,
he was like, he goes into this branch of right, Yeah,
he goes into this branch of the Bank of New
Zealand as Clive Muldoon and he deposits like, you know,

(37:24):
twenty one grand Australian. But like this watchful employee on
his lunch break sees Stonehouse going in and out of
different banks, and like by chance, the teller who'd helped
him was in another bank a few days later, this
branch of the Bank of New South Wales and he
here's the guy. Oh, I'm Joseph Markham. And so the teller,

(37:44):
he's a good citizen and a total rat snitch. He
calls the cops like, Meanwhile, though, Stonehouse and Buckley, they're
living it up right. They went on vacation to Copenhagen,
really they did, and so while they're gone, the cops
got authorization to begin surveillance. And but the thing is
they didn't suspect he was Stonehouse.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Oh they didn't. They thought he was Lord Lucan. Who's
Lord Luken.

Speaker 5 (38:10):
I'm so glad you asked Lord Luke question. He was
Richard John Bingham, seventh Earl of Luken. Oh that one, yeah,
of course, disappeared around the same time as Stonehouse. He
was like this dashing banker, gambler and like adventureman.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Seventies, I'm telling you.

Speaker 5 (38:28):
And he was also wanted for the murder of his
children's nanny, and he attempted murder of his wife. Oh,
dear God, big terrible stuff. He's a horrible human being.
I once tried to watch a documentary about him, and
I had to stop because.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
It was horrible. And you watch anything. I'll watch absolutely any,
especially if it's like true crime.

Speaker 5 (38:44):
You watched especially, but there were no gardens in it,
so I wasn't interested.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Your reigned is wild. You'll watch like something about son
of Sam and then like it's the most graphic thing
I've ever heard about, And then it's like gardening with
Monty Dan.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
Yeah, exactly, I contained multitudes.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
More than that. You canta cosmic itself.

Speaker 5 (39:03):
I am so catching Lord Lucan would have been a
huge deal.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
They get never found him.

Speaker 5 (39:09):
What, Yeah, his story was a major one. The Aussies
they called Scotland Yard right, asked for pictures of Luken
and like any prince you got, the yard threw in
the materials on Stonehouse too. We got another missing dashing
guy and then they swooped in. So December twenty fourth,
Christmas Eve nineteen seventy I have for real and don't

(39:30):
forget it was like November tenth when he went missing.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
So it's only December twenty fourth, the.

Speaker 5 (39:35):
Same year he gets arrested outside of Melbourne train station.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
When they took him into the police station, the cops
told him.

Speaker 5 (39:44):
To pull down his pants. What that's just the custom
of the the ideo, It's part of their statutes.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
No, let's just which you do.

Speaker 5 (39:53):
They wanted to see if he had a six inch
scar on the inside of his right thigh that would
confirm he was Lord Lucan. Ah he got that sixth inch. No, no,
he didn't have it. So then they ran the Prince.
No match for Lucan, but a match for Stonehouse. And
then they found the two passports, and so Stonehouse he

(40:14):
just confesses, He's like, you know what, guess what, chaps,
I'm John Stonehouse, I'm mighty, mighty, I'm letting it all
hang out. And they're like, okay, wow. He's like, you
can pull your pants back up it. He told the
Copsy quote suffered a brainstorm. A brain he meant like

(40:38):
an idea generating sound. This is before Joe versus a volcano,
which had he told. He told the British he was like, brainstorm,
I need to talk to the British Prime minist So
he gets a message to the Prime Minister. He's like,
you know what, I ran off because of quote incredible
pressures in business and various attempts at blackmail. Oh we
didn't know about that.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, just crime, he said, quote.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
I suppose this can be summed up as a brain
storm or a mental breakdown. I can only apologize to
you and all the others who've been troubled by.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
This business used the term brainstorm. That way not created so.

Speaker 5 (41:15):
Stonehouse. He's claiming he's mentally ill, right, he has this breakdown,
he's under all this pressure. You know, I've been under
a whole lot of stress.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
I've seen recently. Totally. I am not sleeping and Sae.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
I didn't fake my death and run off with some
young thing to Australia. I want to make that clear.
If I were going to fake my death, i'd move
to a very large American city and never talk to
anyone and somebody old, yes, I'd find someone on their
last legs depth store and let's come on. So at

(41:48):
Melbourne Police headquarters he was like, hey, can I call
my wife? And they're like sure, and then they hit
record and he said, hello, darling.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Well they picked up the false identity here.

Speaker 5 (42:00):
You would realize from all this that I have been
deceiving you. I'm sorry about that, but in a sense,
I'm glad it's all over.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
I'm sorry, I'm glad it's all over for me. So
you guys, the stress holerable.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
My cortisol levels are through the roof you wires. So
his wife and kids came down from England. His girlfriend
showed up too. That must have felt great.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Oh yeah, I got everyone coming. They all care about him.

Speaker 5 (42:25):
The press had a field day mp rises from the
Dead to the headline. January of nineteen seventy five, he
spoke to BBC Australia and he was sticking with the
mental illness defense.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
This time he.

Speaker 5 (42:37):
Broadened it out to having developed a quote divided personality,
with the new personality providing a release to the old
personality which is under stress and strain of considerable proportions.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
So somebody told them about the many faces of Evey.
That's me.

Speaker 5 (42:51):
Yeah, He's like, yeah, I read Sybil, Let's do this.
She's asked, how, like, how can you put your wife
and your kids through this?

Speaker 2 (42:58):
You would think that might be a question. He can said.

Speaker 5 (43:00):
He said, quote, I was trying by disappearing to make
their lives easier by taking away some of the tensions
that I gave to them for my old personality.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Like uh, and that involved the girl, yeah exactly. That
was also the seat to help out the children.

Speaker 5 (43:14):
Yeah, that was for that to take the pressure for
the kids.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Doing this for you gains. Yeah. I don't want to
do this. This is for you kids.

Speaker 5 (43:24):
Every time I remember, remember the stone House have been
re elected to a scene in Parliament.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Which I still cannot fathom.

Speaker 5 (43:33):
But yes, he was technically still an MP at this point,
and he totally was like, you know what, I am
not giving up my.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Seat, but more importantly, more importantly.

Speaker 5 (43:43):
I'm not giving up my salary, even though I'm twelve
thousand miles away from.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
My job and I haven't done it for months.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
You're gonna absolutely love this quote. Lots of members of
Parliament gone overseas visits and do fact finding tours. I've
been doing a fact finding tour, not only in terms
of geography, but in terms of the inner self of
a political animal. Now that tour could be very interesting.
In my golly, I think it fully justifies an MP's salary.

(44:12):
If I can get the story down of my experience.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
I get the writing time. Then he adds in he
went on both a fact finding and a fact hiding
to hide find himself.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Then he says, quote, I think a member of Parliament,
like anybody else in any other job, is entitled to
some consideration during a period when he has some sort
of illness.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yes, sir, that is true for people who have reason
got secretary iteas.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
But yeah, I love that, just like yeah, the sax
finding tour was finding me.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
I went on a journey and I found so uh. There.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
He gets extradited return to Britain nineteen seventy five. He
faces tons of criminal charges, twenty one counts of theft, fraud, deception.
While he's out on bail, continues to serve as MP.
In an another There's something.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
About the people who become politicians. I'm convinced of it now.
There is something the rest of us do not have,
and that's why they are just shameless and willing to
do this stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
I used to think it was like they have like
a some kind of weird kink about being shamed publicly
and also being adulated publicly that they love both sides.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
I'm convinced it's more than that. It's it's way vapor. Yeah,
it's some much storytelling mechanism in their head is broken. Yeah,
well he's there or whatever.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
Hypers he's king of poor decisions, these king, I'm champion,
adds another. He adds another to the list. He insists
on representing himself in court.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Oh god, and like he's stuck.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
With the whole. I was overwhelmed. I'm mentally ill sing.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
I also have amnesian.

Speaker 5 (45:41):
The trial was in nineteen seventy six, was completely theatrical.
It went on for sixty eight days.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
He cross examined witnesses. He made these like elaborate speeches.
He really like tried to appeal to sympathy. He made
the longest doc statement in British history. I went on
for six days.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
A statement lasted six days. I want the British version.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
I don't know who this person is, a Vin Diesel
to make this movie as it is, like, look.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
I'm a serious actor. Whoever there Vin Diesel is do
this movie? Oh my god, Clive Owen.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Oh good.

Speaker 5 (46:17):
So the evidence was damning right, forged documents, fake identities,
bank fraud, false accounting. He's ultimately found guilty of forgery
of a passport, stealing checks from his own company, and
attempting to defraud insurance companies by pretending he drowned.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
He was.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
He was found innocent of conspiring to defraud creditors, but
they attacked on another charge, wasting police time.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Oh to get mad about that.

Speaker 5 (46:41):
He was guilty for that, So he gets seven years
in prison. The presiding judge said that he had committed
quote deliberate premeditated heartless fraud. So he served his sentence
at Wormwood Scrubs, which is maybe one of the best
prison names. Familiar with that one, and then Blundlesome Prison
where he had Yeah, he had a bunch of heart

(47:02):
attacks in nineteen seventy seven, so it's like a year
after he's in there. He gets released early on health
grounds in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
He's in his late fifties.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
Yeah, by then he divorced Barbara and married Sheila Buckley, the.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Secretary with him. They must have like a chessa.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
He kept a low profile in his later years. He retired,
he went to Hampshire. It was like wrote books, novels, police. Yeah,
he went to Old Hampshire. He would make occasional public
statements defending his actions or like criticizing the press, but
he pretty much disappeared from public life. In the eighties,

(47:40):
declassified documents and interviews with Eastern Bloc defectors, they resurrected
the claim that he had been an active spy for
Czechoslovakia and that his code name was Agent Colon k
O L O N Colan Colon.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
Yeah, So he and his immediate family denied the alations like.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Where they first met him, like Cologne, like Germany. Who knows.
So that's not how you spell it, I know, but
I figured they would spell it like they'd make Colonne.
He said that he had been used by foreign agents.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
Without knowledge or intent.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Me too, brother, that happens to me, Like every.

Speaker 5 (48:15):
Day I go to the supermarket. Foreign agents are I'm
about to use you and you don't even know.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
I'd find out later.

Speaker 5 (48:24):
Okay. So but there were the five files that came
out put in that book I mentioned. Yes, they confirmed
that British intelligence, you know, said that he had been
passing sensitive material to check agents in exchange for payment,
beginning as early as nineteen sixty two.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
That's early, that's early.

Speaker 5 (48:42):
Stonehouse died of a heart attack April fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight,
at the age of sixty two.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
In his final years, he was like this tragicomic figure, right,
Like he's this man of promise, undone by ambition, deceit, arrogance.
Over the years, his story has been told in documentaries, books,
and there was an ITV series in twenty twenty three
starring Matthew mcfaden Tom Walmscans from Succession is that ball.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
I don't know, I don't know whatever, mister Darcy, I
don't really anymore. They gave it up. So he was
in succession, Yeah, I know a guy, yeahs in succession.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
Mister dark loves succession. Yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Public surprised that both you and I liked that, Yeah,
because we both do not like usually the same things.
And also that it's about rich people acting badly. I
mean that's a rough sell for us. For yeah, for
each of us are different reasons we loved it.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
So people are like divided on him, like some see
him as this desperate man and done by stress mental illness.
Others are like he's a narcissist.

Speaker 7 (49:49):
Surprised, I mean he's fascinating, right, you might take he
was like climbing to these incredible heights of power, only
like plunge into infamy through a series of bad decisions.

Speaker 5 (50:02):
So like whether he was mentally ill or not, though,
like we can safely say the boy wasn't right, Yeah,
I do what he was doing was wrong, otherwise he
wouldn't have hidden it.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
I don't think, I mean, do you believe that the
mental illness? It seems to me that he's kind of
like joining a crowd. He doesn't belong any going we're
all victims here.

Speaker 5 (50:17):
Well, I think he was made frantic by it.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
But I think he's he you know, I think he's
miss mislabeling.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
He's mislabeling it is my I mean, I agree.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
He had a psychological break and he had a moment
of great stress. But to call himself like this is
a culmination of mental illness. I shouldn't speculate.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not I'm not an expert.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Thankfully, I'm not a jury member, so I don't.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
But I mean, I don't know just the details I
see there. Yeah, he's a cautionary tale, right, definitely that.
Don't lose sight of your beliefs, maintain your integrity, don't
get business deals. Yeah, don't bonk your secretary if you're married.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Oh right right.

Speaker 5 (50:56):
Don't fake your death. These are good thing, good reminders.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Don't fit your death doubt.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Yeah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Apparently, not to fake your death? Don't take Yeah, I've
been planning my entire life to do that. You're like
taking away once.

Speaker 5 (51:09):
This has changed my trajectory.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
It's what I call my first retirement, so I don't
know now what to do my first retirement.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Elizabeth, what's yours?

Speaker 5 (51:18):
I told you everything you ever need to know. When
I'm done, you know what I need? I need to
talk back?

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Did okay? Produc Can you favor us with one?

Speaker 4 (51:27):
Oh my god, I went.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Dizzy, Clyde, how are you? Uh? Salutations from Delaware, the state,
not the apparent city in Ohio. Do you know what's ridiculous?
I make such a point to avoid social media, and
I'm very happy with that, to the point that I
have no idea what blue sky is. But I also
am in the who knows who cares? So in my mind,

(52:02):
you're like Mufasa in the sky, and that's how I
can find you. So I'll look up next time I
need you.

Speaker 5 (52:09):
Oh my god, I love this personally. I envy you
not knowing blue sky and staying off social media. I mean,
I'd like to cut it down to pretty much that,
but goodness, Yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Look up if you need to feel us, look up
in the sky. That's how I find her. Yeah, that's true.
That's how I just love that so much.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
That's all for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com Newsflash breaking news. We just want
a tony no yeah for.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Fleet fleetest feet, fastest feet in the bizh okay, I
thought we won for Fleet Week.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
And fleet we won Fleet Week two years ago. We're
also Ridiculous Crime on on Blue Sky, Instagram or if
you need me, just look up in the sky. We're
on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. You can email Ridiculous
Crime gmail dot com, leave a talkback on the iHeart app.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Please we love them so much reach out.

Speaker 5 (53:11):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
produced and edited by Dave Cousten, twelfth Earl of Minja
Mind Your Own Business, starring Annalise Rutger as Judith. Research
is by Eagle Eyed bank teller Marissa Brown. The theme
song is by Miami beachcomber Thomas Lee and I rate
British constituent Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany

(53:34):
five hundred guest Haarn, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.
Executive producers are Lord Lucan, Hunters, Ben Bollen and Noel.

Speaker 8 (53:43):
Browns QUI say It one More times? QUI.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, four more podcasts
My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.