A NEW biography of Jill Craigie, the late Scottish film-maker who was married to Michael Foot, provides further evidence that she was raped by Arthur Koestler, the political novelist.

In the book, to be published in October, Ronald Neame, an American film director who employed Craigie as a screenwriter on two films, The Million Pound Note and Windom’s Way, says she told him in 1952 that she had been raped by Koestler.

When the allegations emerged from a biography of Koestler five years ago, they were contested by other academics and novelists. But Carl Rollyson, an academic based in New York who collaborated with Foot to write To Be a Woman: the Life of Jill Craigie, said: “It is clear from my research that there is no doubt the rape happened.

“She told a couple of very close friends at the time. I called Ronald Neame in Beverly Hills and he did not realise this was a subject of controversy in Britain. He said, ‘In that case, yes. I have told nobody about it all these years, not even my wife.’ He went on to talk about how Jill had confided in him, asking what should she do and how she should handle it.

“Essentially he told her to keep it in confidence, not to tell anyone and absolutely not to go to the police because the repercussions for Michael’s public figure were too horrendous.”

Craigie, who died in 1999, later said she did not go to the police because she feared bad publicity and that she would not be believed. “Koestler was this extraordinary man, a hero who had taken on Stalin, and I was trying to make a reputation as a filmmaker,” she later said. “I remember sitting on the front steps after he’d gone and thinking my life would fall to pieces if I went to the police. The story would be all over the front pages and it would look very bad.

I’d gone on a pub crawl with him, though I’d only drunk ginger beer. Everyone would think I’d asked for it.”

Craigie kept the secret from her husband for 40 years. The allegations were published in full in David Cesarani’s biography of Koestler five years ago and were vehemently disputed by other writers, including Michael Scammell, Koestler’s official biographer.

Rollyson said: “I also talk about the challenge that was mounted by, among other people, Scammell. But when I asked him if he maintains that this rape didn’t occur, he said, ‘On balance I believe the evidence shows that it did occur’. He has changed his mind.”

The book, which has been fact-checked by Foot, claims that Craigie escaped the first time that Koestler tried to overpower her, when Foot was out of town. But he attacked her again and raped her, saying: “I always thought you had a yen for me.”

It also contains extracts from a diary Craigie wrote during the ill-fated 1983 election campaign, when Foot was criticised for his poor public image. Craigie had been blamed for some of his ill-judged appearances but Rollyson said: “She was always very supportive of him, but in the privacy of her own mind she had criticisms of the way the campaign was conducted.”

The book will be published by Aurum Press in London. Foot yesterday confirmed that he was happy with the manuscript but did not wish to elaborate further.

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