MP planned fake death for months
from the website of BBC News (click above link for full story)
December 29, 2005
John Stonehouse, the Labour MP who faked his own death, spent months rehearsing his new identity, according to newly released official papers. He pretended to have drowned off Miami Beach in 1974, but was later found in Australia with a false passport.
He claimed to have had a breakdown, but a psychiatric report, released to the National Archives, reveals he had been using a dead man's identity for months.
Mr Stonehouse had fled to start a new life with his mistress.
The, MP for Walsall North, a former minister, left a pile of clothes on Miami Beach on 20 November 1974, to make it seem as if he had drowned while swimming.
This followed the collapse of a series of fraudulent businesses he had established.
But on Christmas Eve, he was picked up by police in Melbourne, where he had gone in an attempt to establish a new life with his former secretary, Sheila Buckley.
He was found to be carrying a false passport in the name of Joseph Markham - the dead husband of a constituent - and claimed to have suffered a "brainstorm".
However, the newly released psychiatric report reveals he had been using Markham's identity for months.
It says: "He spent short periods posing as Mr Markham, a private and 'honest' individual, which apparently led to reduced tension.
"He began to dislike the personality of Stonehouse and came to believe that his wife, colleagues and friends would be better off without him.
"He therefore devised his escape to get away from the identity of Stonehouse.