a
reference to the witnesses called to give
evidence in the trial of
Dr. Stephen
Ward (1913-1963), an
osteopath, who was accused of
living on
income from prostitution. The trial came to be called the "
Profumo Affair" when investigations found that one of
Ward's women, Christine
Keeler (1942- ), had had
illegal sexual relations with British
statesman John Profumo (1915- ) and that
Profumo had earlier lied about this.
reference to the witnesses brought before trial over the
Profumo expose which concerned
John Dennis Profumo (1915 - ), British
secretary of
state for
war from 1960 until 5 June 1963 and Stephen
Thomas Ward (1913 - 1963), British
osteopath and society portraitist.
Ward had introduced a Christine
Keeler to
Profumo in the early 1960s. In March 1963,
Profumo lied to
Parliament about an affair he had with Christine
Keeler, who at the same
time had been seeing
Captain Yevgeni Ivanov, a Soviet attache in
London. The
moral and
security aspects of the
scandal fed newspaper
headlines for weeks.
Ward, who was on trial for
living off the
earnings of prostitutes, disclosed the
fact that
Profumo had lied to Cabinet members earlier that year.
Keeler herself was the
principal witness at
Ward's trial held during the summer, although in 1962 she had been convicted of perjury and
conspiracy to obstruct
justice with regards to two other
affairs she had been
involved in.
Profumo resigned from
office after confessing that he had lied.