JOHN JACKSON What really happened the night Maxwell died?
Ex-Mirror reporter who travelled with the Maxwell family to scene of tragedy 30 years ago the crooked tycoon who owned the Mirror fell off his yacht... but was it an accident, suicide or something more sinister?
IT’S 30 years since Robert Maxwell’s naked body was found in the sea off the Canary Islands, his death a mystery which endures to this day.
The media mogul, whose company owned the Daily Mirror, had been reported missing by the crew of his luxury yacht hours before the discovery.
But Maxwell, a larger-than-life and celebrated figure, soon went from hero to villain as it was found that he had looted millions from the Mirror pension fund to prop up his debt-ridden business empire.
His treachery condemned many of his workers to poverty and left his newspapers on the verge of collapse.
With the Spanish authorities ruling out foul play and the family insisting he would never take his own life, conspiracy theories abound to this day.
Here, former Daily Mirror reporter John Jackson recalls being at the centre of the storm which gripped the world...
Within hours of arriving for work on Tuesday, November 5, 1991, editor Richard Stott relayed the astonishing news that publisher Robert Maxwell had been lost overboard from his yacht Lady Ghislaine and I was on my way to find him and support family members.
With Bonfire Night plans scrapped, photographer Ken Lennox and I took the lift to the roof of the building next to the Mirror, then at London’s Holborn Circus.
Maxwell had bought the site to provide himself with a luxury office and helicopter pad.
His copter landed and on board were his wife Betty, dressed completely in black, and Philip, the eldest of the Maxwell’s remaining seven children (two died in childhood).
Nothing was said as we hovered over Fleet Street and headed to Farnborough Airport in Hampshire where we boarded one of the family’s Gulfstream jets for the flight to the Canaries.
Around an hour later a message was relayed to the pilot that a body had been found in the sea and we were diverted to a military base near Las Palmas.
At that moment Betty told me: “Whatever has happened, I can assure you he did not kill himself. He would never do that.”
We taxied up to the hangar where the body was waiting in the air-sea rescue helicopter.
A request for 70-year-old Betty to climb aboard and make an identification was instantly rebuffed.
She told them to bring the body into a nearby room.
As this was being arranged – with difficulty as Maxwell was very overweight – the rescue pilot told Betty and me: “I have plucked many bodies from the sea and I just want to tell you he did not drown. There was no water in his lungs.”
I then escorted Betty and Philip to view the body of my boss.
His skin hadn’t discoloured or wrinkled but what intrigued me was that he was lying with his arms up either side of his head and his hands were clenched.
As a father of four it reminded me of how babies often fall asleep.
It was certainly Robert Maxwell. Betty relayed this to editor Stott and the front page headline next morning was “The Man Who Saved The
Mirror”. Little did we know of the revelations to follow...
From the airport we were driven to board the Lady Ghislaine and start three hectic days with only one thought dominating Betty’s mind.
She was determined to get the body released so we could fly it to Jerusalem and arrive before sunset on Friday. Jewish tradition dictates a body must be buried as soon as possible.
But we would not be able to land on the Sabbath – Saturday, meaning the burial would be delayed until Sunday, five days after her husband’s death.
The next day youngest daughter Ghis
I found Ghislaine instructing the crew to shred all documents
JOHN JACKSON ON BOARD MAXWELL YACHT
laine flew in from New York. At this point I should say I never saw one tear in the eye of wife or daughter.
Betty admitted the marriage had been falling apart for years and although Ghislaine was her father’s favourite, she remembered the cruel way he often treated the children.
Condolences came in non-stop and I took calls from Margaret Thatcher and President George Bush.
Philip asked if we could have a quiet word. Tearfully, he said his father hated him and the feeling was mutual.
Unlike brothers Ian and Kevin, Philip had no interest in finance and the family business.
His sadness was: “Now I will never have the chance to make up with him.”
One major obstacle to the Israel journey was that Maxwell’s 22-stone body in its zinc-lined coffin was far too heavy for the Gulfstream jet.
In the end a larger plane was chartered and we all set off early on Friday, arriving just before dusk.
In the darkness I could see Betty having a quiet sob, the first sign of a widow in mourning.
Two memories of our leaving the Lady Ghislaine for the last time: Betty asked if I would carry her handbag, which prompted much mirth from mates ashore.
Not until I read her memoirs years later did I learn that the bag held £30,000 in cash and other treasured items. As we were heading for the gangplank Betty shouted that I should tell Ghislaine to hurry up. I found her in the lounge, instructing the crew to shred all documents on board. Did she know something?
In Jerusalem the family stayed at the historic King David Hotel where they were joined by the remaining children.
The Israeli Government afforded Maxwell an elaborate funeral with Philip giving the family eulogy after a speech from the Israeli President.
And then he was laid to rest in a plot he had bought on the Mount of Olives and my job was finished.
Now the questions – was it suicide, assassination or natural causes?
I, one of few people who saw him dead and alive, and spent time on the yacht, am convinced it was natural causes. It is known that at around 4am on the final morning he telephoned the bridge to complain his cabin was either too hot or too cold.
Then he went on deck, naked, to pee over the side.
The yacht has a steel barrier around its entirety except by the tenders at the stern where there are two chains.
He made his way behind the tenders and then one of two things happened.
It is known that he was a very sick man and there is one possibility that he had a heart attack, grabbed the chain, couldn’t hold on and was dead when he hit the water.
Or, and we know it was a windy night and the yacht was rolling, he stumbled, grabbed the chain, couldn’t hold on and had a heart attack as he hit the very cold ocean. That would explain three things: the way I saw the body with arms up and hands clenched; the rescue pilot’s assertion there was no water in his lungs; and Betty’s absolute assurance after 46 years living with the man, that he would never have killed himself.
Back in London, Ghislaine thanked me for all I had done for the family during the fraught and dramatic days after her father’s death.
Like all the family, she seemed diminished in her grief.
Now, as she sits in a New York jail awaiting trial for her association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, I realise that for her that dark day 30 years ago was just a portent of even darker days to come.