INFAMOUS SCANDALS (True Crime) by Williams Anne & Head Vivian

Author:Williams, Anne & Head, Vivian [Williams, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Canary Press
Published: 2011-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

A BROKEN MAN

However, during the same year, a huge scandal broke. For 12 years, Parkinson had been having an affair with his secretary, Sara Keays. According to Keays, the relationship had carried on because Parkinson continually promised her that he would leave his wife and marry her. According to her, he proposed marriage on at least two occasions. Eventually Ms Keays became pregnant, prompting speculation that she had done so to force the issue, which she denied. Whatever the truth of the matter, Ms Keays published a statement in The Times newspaper publicly criticising Mr Parkinson and ‘setting the record straight’ about the relationship between the two of them.

In her statement, Keays said, ‘My baby was conceived in a long-standing, loving relationship which I allowed to continue because I believed in our eventual marriage’. She felt that it was wrong for her to remain silent in the circumstances because it would cast doubt on her reputation, and she felt that her child ought to know who its father was. She perceived it as a fundamental right for a child to know this, and many agreed with her.

Margaret Thatcher initially supported Parkinson, but in response to the scandal he offered his resignation, which she felt advisable to accept. In a statement to the press, made through his lawyer, he admitted the affair but made no other comment. Those who knew him reported that he did not entirely accept Ms Keays’ version of the event, and was a ‘broken man’ as the result of what appeared to be the end of his political career.

When the child, Flora, was born, a long-running, bitter dispute between Keays and Parkinson started over maintenance payments. To make matters more difficult, the child, Flora, had to undergo a major operation when she was four years old, and as a result suffered learning difficulties. She also suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a neurobiological disorder which is characterised by difficulties in social interaction. Naturally, the press were fascinated in the very public battle between her parents, which was exacerbated by the problems that Keays now faced in bringing up her daughter. As a result, Parkinson gained a series of court orders forbidding the press to discuss Flora. These rulings were so strict that she was not allowed to appear in school photographs or perform in school plays. However, when she turned 18, the court injunction expired, and Flora then appeared in the press and on television to tell her side of the story.

The court injunction, which had begun as an attempt to protect the child, now seemed to have emerged as an attempt to protect Parkinson. Speaking on a television documentary, Flora described how she had never met her father, saying, ‘I would like to meet my daddy, because I haven’t been given the chance to see him yet’.

In a radio interview Keays gave vent to her feelings about the unfairness of what had happened. Flora had been born with epilepsy, and as a result had to have the right frontal lobe of her brain removed when she was four.

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