Peter Hain woke at 4am in a cold sweat. He had just been through another
version of the nightmare that plagued him. Standing in the witness box, like
Joseph K in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Hain began to feel that he might even
be guilty.
It was early 1976 and Hain, then the student leader of Britain’s antiapartheid
movement and a prominent member of the Liberal party, was facing trial at
the Old Bailey for robbing Barclays Bank in Putney, southwest London.
“I slept worse than I have ever done, often waking in the night, in the
‘witness box’, and usually waking early in the morning with the whole
incredible affair in mind,” the Northern Ireland secretary recalled
recently. Sometimes he became so paranoid that he thought to himself: “Maybe
I did actually do it.”
This weekend, more than 30 years later, legal files have been released that
throw new light on one of the biggest mysteries in recent political history.
The case was front page news for six months and the intrigue went all the way
to the top of government, with suggestions that South African spies had
hired a Hain “lookalike” to frame one of the most hated young activists of
the time.
Hain is now a successful politician, bidding to be deputy leader of the Labour
party, and the affair that bore his name is all but forgotten. But the
papers, released by the Crown Prosecution Service under the Freedom of
Information Act, are a reminder of a pre-Thatcherite era when this country
was suffering its darkest period since the second world war.
Against a background of economic decline, trade union triumphalism, Northern
Ireland terrorism and the cold war, Britain was gripped by doubts about some
of the most important institutions of state.
Politicians were discredited by scandal and incompetence; Sir Robert Mark, the
Metropolitan police chief, estimated that 400 of his officers were corrupt;
Harold Wilson, the prime minister, confessed he had lost control of the
security services; and a cabal of industrialists and retired generals
allegedly considered trying to seize power.
In such a troubled era, a minor bank theft in leafy Putney was to have
extraordinary repercussions. HAIN was from a white South African liberal
family that had moved to Britain in 1966. He had become active in the Young
Liberals, which in those days was a vocal organisation with 24,000 members.
Soon Hain was the most famous student radical of his generation. He organised
demonstrations that disrupted a Springbok rugby tour of the UK in the winter
of 1969-70 and led to the cancellation of a tour by the South African
cricket team in 1970.
Hain was demonised by British cricket and rugby fans and to many white South
Africans he was Public Enemy No 1. Nelson Mandela, imprisoned on Robben
Island at the time, later remembered: “The soup served up was thinner and
the prison guards would curse ‘that bloody Hain’.”
On the morning of Friday, October 24, 1975, the 25-year-old postgraduate
student was finessing his PhD thesis on an old typewriter at home in Fawe
Park Road, Putney. Pat, his wife, was sewing a bikini and listening to Radio
1.
Shortly before lunchtime, Hain’s typewriter ribbon began fading. He would have
to go to the shops to replace it.
In his blue VW Beetle he drove the few minutes to the branch of W H Smith in
the high street, parking on a yellow line. He was in a rush but took time to
take a peek at The Spectator magazine to see if it had carried a review of
one of his books. He waved to a friend, paid for his typewriter ribbon and
returned home.
Hain was tucking into a late lunch of bread and “bits and pieces” from the
fridge when there was a knock at the door. The police wanted a few words.
Could he come to the station?
Initially unconcerned — he thought it was about parking tickets — Hain became
increasingly anxious as he realised the extent of the police presence.
Several patrol cars and a Black Maria (a van reserved for uncooperative
detainees) were drawn up outside. There had been a bank robbery, he was
told. If he did not come with them, they would arrest him.
At Wandsworth police station he learnt more. Someone bearing a physical
resemblance to Hain had entered Barclays Bank on Putney High Street, grabbed
£490 in £5 notes and made his getaway, chased by four schoolboys.
The robber had thrown the money in the air before making his escape. A few
minutes later, however, the schoolboys had seen Hain getting into his car
and identified him as the thief.
Hain was held for nine hours in a cell and charged with theft. This was
promptly leaked to the weekend newspapers.
To some, the front page headlines were excellent news. “Hain the pain”, they
called him. A group of wealthy right-wingers had even brought a private
prosecution against the young student radical, attempting to prove a charge
of conspiracy. To his enemies he was a dangerous subversive who was quite
capable of robbing a bank to pursue his supposed revolutionary activities.
In this fervid atmosphere, the police behaved in a way that would get the case
thrown out now.
First, they put Hain in an identification parade after “Hain on theft charge”
headlines had appeared, and even after the London Evening Standard had
printed his photograph with the caption: “Peter Hain — due to appear in an
identification parade today”.
(The bank cashier who had handed over the £490 duly identified him as the
robber.)
Secondly, two senior officers repeatedly went at night to the home of Terry
MacLaren, one of the schoolboys who had chased the robber. MacLaren did not
think Hain was the thief and had agreed to testify for the defence. The
apparent purpose of the police was to see him without Hain’s lawyer being
present. MacLaren’s father sent them packing.
All this is known from Hain’s own books about the case. What the prosecution
files reveal is that the police also knew about a witness who claimed to
have evidence that the robbery was a “fit-up” by South African security.
The dossier shows that on February 10, 1976, Detective Sergeant B F York of
Hertfordshire police wrote a memo to his superiors, which was forwarded to
the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), saying he had learnt from a
confidential source that the BBC was making a documentary about the case.
As part of that programme it had interviewed a man — whose name is deleted in
the files — who told them that he had evidence that “Hain was arrested as
the result of a conspiracy on the part of South African intelligence
officers operating in this country.
“The journalists believe X’s story is worthy of some credence. The BBC have
not chosen to notify the Metropolitan police of this interview, nor, I
understand, have Hain or Corbett [Robin Corbett, a sympathetic Labour MP]
seen fit to do so. While X’s story may appear to be a complete fabrication,
my informant is disturbed by the thought that perhaps Hain and Corbett are
in the process of conspiring to manufacture a defence to Hain’s charge.”
Detective Superintendent J H Bolton, of No 9 regional crime squad, also wrote
to a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met saying he had been approached
by one of the BBC journalists, told the contents of the interview with X and
invited to view it.
“I told X that I had no interest in the trial of Peter Hain and did not think
that any tape he had would be of evidential value.”
The significance of these two memos is that they show that the DPP and the
police had information from their own sources about a possible South African
connection yet apparently did not investigate.
The defence team knew who X was: Kenneth Wyatt, a pornographer and former
Conservative councillor in Watford, Hertfordshire, had turned up at Hain’s
home with a story involving a South African agent.
Wyatt’s statement to the defence appears in the files, although his name is
blacked out. In it he says his source had told him that the South Africans
“were buying ministers and other people, civil servants in Britain and
elsewhere . . . He told me there was a five-stage plan being put into
operation completely to disrupt the Liberal party.
“He said: ‘They have even framed a man for bank robbery’. Police had
discovered in Johannesburg a double of Peter Hain. The man left Johannesburg
in August to go to Brussels, Dublin, then London. He purchased a car and
clothing identical to Peter Hain’s.”
Whether this was true or not, Hain’s lawyers decided they could not introduce
it into their defence because it could not be proved and would be more
likely to muddy what was a clear defence of mistaken identity.
In early April 1976, a jury found Hain not guilty by a majority of 10-2 after
deliberating for more than five hours. The judge, Alan King-Hamilton, a
member of the MCC, told them: “Your conclusion was obviously a very
difficult one.”
Hain’s trial by the Establishment was over. He is now an Establishment figure
himself — although he might prefer not to be seen as one as he fights for
the Labour deputy leadership.
“All this stuff coming out now at this time is great for Peter,” said one MP
last week. “After all, it reminds everyone of the antiapartheid hero he was.
Shame he has turned into such a boring bastard now.”
