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Section One Index:
The censorship of Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation

My involvement in this story began following the general election of 1 May 1997, when ex-BBC reporter Martin Bell ousted Conservative MP Neil Hamilton from his safe Tatton seat.  Bell had entered the election following claims by a national newspaper, The Guardian, that a Conservative lobbyist named Ian Greer had given Hamilton cash bribes during the second half of the 1980s to reward him for tabling parliamentary questions in support of one of Greer's clients: the volatile Egyptian owner of Harrods, Mohamed 'Al' Fayed. 
    The British media's coverage was broadly in line with The Guardian's, but every story has two sides and I was not convinced that I had been informed of what Hamilton's side of the story was.  So, out of curiosity I approached him to learn why he claimed innocence to The Guardian's corruption and wrongdoing charges.

    My suspicions turned out to be well founded.  During that first meeting I learned for the first time a number of important facts.  The most significant of these was that Hamilton had at one time been in a key ministerial position, which would have enabled him to help Fayed acquire British nationality, but that he had instead spurned the Egyptian's calls for help.  Hamilton told me that he believed that this had caused Fayed to develop a great animus against him.
    Hamilton explained that ten years earlier during the second half of the 1980s, he and other MPs had supported Fayed's purchase of Harrods department store, and had attacked moves by Fayed's business rival, Tiny Rowland, to wrench control away from the Egyptian.  Hamilton also explained that in 1987 he had stayed a week at the Paris Ritz, which Fayed owned, as Fayed's guest, and that he had enjoyed Fayed's hospitality on two other occasions.  It was, he said, because he had at one time been Fayed's supporter, his friend, and a recipient of his largess - coupled to the fact that upon becoming a minister he had refused to abuse his position to help Fayed - which lay at the root of Fayed's allegations.

However, contrary to our expectations, Downey said that he had found the evidence 'compelling' that Neil Hamilton had indeed been paid 'cash in brown envelopes' processed by three of Fayed's staff.  Malcolm and I shook our heads wondering what it was Downey had found that we had missed.  But whilst the British media gave heavy coverage to Downey's 'verdict', after a few days' intensive reading of Downey's report we established that Downey's 'compelling evidence' punch line was actually based entirely on the anomalous and evidence-free testimony of the three Fayed employees whose similar testimony against the lobbyist Ian Greer Downey had nevertheless rejected. 
    We were baffled as to how Downey could have come to such bizarre conclusions, and troubled that no one else was asking the same questions.  Consequently, we continued with our work.  We soon discovered hard evidence to show that Downey had relied on documents submitted by The Guardian that were forged, and testimony given by its journalists that was false.  We later unearthed other evidence which proved that the stories submitted by The Guardian and Fayed to explain away the belated emergence of three accusing Fayed employees were fabrications.  Bit by bit, Keith-Hill and I began to unravel a story of cover-up and corruption within a 'liberal' newspaper - a newspaper that wielded Svengali-like influence over the British media, including the world-respected BBC and Britain's biggest news agency, the key Press Association.

In summary, our investigation proved that The Guardian had framed Neil Hamilton in cahoots with Fayed, three of Fayed's employees, and certain of both camps' lawyers. 

In Section Two of this website there is a concise rendition of the true story of the 'cash for questions' affair - the story of an audacious cover-up orchestrated by a respected broadsheet newspaper.  There is also a comprehensive chronology of events and evidence entitled 'The brainwashing of a democratic state', which provides enough proof to convince the most sceptical cynic that The Guardian newspaper really is a corrupt  subversive organisation.  In Section Three there are listed some of the lies and false representations made by The Guardian's journalists and its lawyers.  Among those involved figure two of The Guardian's consecutive editors, plus London's leading libel solicitor, Geraldine Proudler; plus Australia's famous, highly political human rights barrister, London-based Geoffrey Robertson QC.

Our research and conclusions have been examined and endorsed by a number of leading journalists.  However, so far there has been a reluctance among British news editors to break this story out into the open.  Truly, without the Internet, it is likely that the real story of how a corrupt newspaper subverted the British parliament, legal system, and people, would have been buried forever.

Jonathan Boyd Hunt

Personal view

Jonathan Boyd Hunt & Malcolm Keith-Hill

This web page is situated in Guardianlies.com/Section One: The British media's censorship of Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation

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