The impartiality of a former Army officer now serving as the Queen’s private secretary, whose responsibilities include doling out advice on the royal charter on press regulation, has been called onto doubt after details with his own run-ins against an investigative journalist were revealed.
John Pilger, then of Central Television, investigated Sir Christopher Geidt in the 1980s for allegedly training the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to lay mines whilst overseeing the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops – a report which saw Pilger successfully sued for libel.
To this day however Pilger asserts that his defence case collapsed only because of a gagging order issued by the government on national security grounds, a move which prevented three ministers and two former SAS heads from giving evidence.
Plans to implement a royal charter on press regulation have been brought forward by the newspaper industry after it rejected a reform scheme championed by Lord Justice Leveson.