In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
The Criminal Cases Review Commission recently refused to refer her case despite acknowledging prejudicial media coverage.
Keeler, long reduced to a symbol of the Profumo affair, endured abuse and exploitation from childhood to trial. As Gerry notes, her 'crime' was not perjury but survival in a misogynistic era. The petition seeks belated justice for a woman punished for being both victim and inconvenient witness.
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