Seymour Platt today said he would pursue a Royal Pardon as he blasted the Criminal Case Review Commission’s decision not to refer Christine Keeler’s perjury conviction to the Court of Appeal
The son of Profumo scandal icon Christine Keeler vowed he will not give up fighting to clear his mum’s name, despite a fresh snub.
Seymour Platt said the decision to block an appeal against his mum’s 1963 perjury conviction was “a disgrace”. He says the charges against Christine, who died aged 75 in 2017, were cooked up to smear her after her affair with Tory minister John Profumo two years earlier.
And in an exclusive interview with the Mirror, defiant Seymour says he would now seek a government pardon. Seymour, 53, said: “I won’t give up. This is just another step towards justice. We will be making the application soon. My mother deserves justice. Everybody deserves justice. What happened to my mother was wrong, she shouldn’t have gone to prison.”
Jazz singer Aloysius “Lucky” Gordon, who had stalked Christine, was jailed in June 1963 for assaulting her. But he successfully appealed his conviction after two witnesses claimed Christine had lied to the court that they were not present at the time of the attack. Christine admitted perjury in December 1963 and was jailed for nine months.
Seymour’s legal team say she was put under pressure by the witnesses and that she lived in fear of Gordon. But the Criminal Case Review Commission said it was unable to send the case for an appeal.
The CCRC accepted that: “Miss Keeler could not have secured a fair trial, particularly in view of the unprecedented level of prejudicial media coverage of her.” But denying the appeal, it said: “In quashing the perjury conviction, the Court of Appeal would have a very limited ability to correct the public record in relation to Christine Keeler’s part in the Profumo Affair.
“The Court of Appeal’s role would be focused upon the safety or otherwise or Christine Keeler’s conviction for perjury. A judgment from the Court of Appeal quashing the perjury conviction would not be able to restore Christine Keeler’s reputation or alter her public image.”
The CCRC added: “The quashing of the conviction would be unlikely to reduce the media coverage of the case, in fact the opposite is true.” Seymour, who now lives in Longford, Ireland, with wife Lorraine, and their daughter, Daisy, said: “I actually think it’s a disgrace, they’re basically justifying why they think it’s right to deny Christine Keeler justice.”
He added: “She was the victim of an assault, it’s all there in the public record. She was stalked and assaulted by a man. I’m determined to clear her name. In her will after she died, she asked me to tell the truth about her life. She went to prison and she should not have gone to prison.”
Revealing his plan to ask for a pardon, which would have to be signed by the King, he added: “I promised to clear my mother’s name and I will continue, I won’t give up. We will carry on. We will put in an application to the government and the King and I understand Queen Camilla campaigns to stop violence against women. I think this is an excellent example of a woman who suffered violence by a man and went to prison.”
Married War Minister Profumo, then 46, slept with Christine when she was just 19 after meeting her at a party. She was also involved with Russian spy Yevgeny Ivanov, lending the sex scandal a national security element.
The Prime Minister at the time, Harold Macmillan, branded her a “tart”, while his Labour successor, Harold Wilson, called her a “harlot”. Seymour says his mother was made a scapegoat and it cast a shadow over her entire life. He said: “One of the first things my mum would say to people was, ‘I went to prison a long time ago, I shouldn’t have gone to prison’. She was always ashamed of it, she lived with the fear and the stigma her entire life.”
Christine married James Levermore in 1965 and had a son, James, but the marriage broke down. In 1971 she wed Anthony Platt and Seymour was born that December. The couple separated. Christine died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at the Princess Royal University Hospital, in Farnborough, South London.
Her story was turned into the hit BBC drama The Trial of Christine Keeler, which had millions of viewers. In a written judgment seen by the Mirror, the CCRC says: “In quashing the perjury conviction, the Court of Appeal would not necessarily be able to ‘set the record straight’ regarding the Lucky Gordon case.”
Dubai-based solicitor James Harbridge, who is leading the campaign to clear Christine, said: “There’s nothing of any substance in the decision that if the perjury conviction was quashed ‘it would not be able to restore Christine Keeler’s reputation or alter her public image.’ Who is the commissioner to make this determination?
“And whether it restores Christine’s reputation or restores her public image is immaterial, it’s a question of whether she deserves justice in having her perjury conviction quashed. What the public then makes of it, is up to the public.”
World-renowned human rights barrister Dr Felicity Gerry KC, who helped with the legal submission to the CCRC, said: “It is extraordinarily disappointing for a case the CCRC found had merit to be denied an opportunity to appeal. Christine Keeler’s case is widely misunderstood. She was a victim of violence wrongly imprisoned for not mentioning two men who saw her being attacked.
“She bore the burden of Profumo’s scandal her whole life and should be posthumously pardoned.”