Stonehouse precluded from Australian haven

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 17

Stonehouse precluded from Australian haven

NZ.P.A.-ReuUr—Copyright)

CANBERRA, February’ 2b.

The runaway British Labour member of Parliament, Mr John Stonehouse, suffered a mental breakdown before fleeing to Australia on a false passport, and would be given three days to leave the country if he ceased to be a member of the House of Commons, the Australian Parliament was told todav.

“His mental illness is such that he fails to satisfy the criteria for permanent-entry purposes,” the Minister of Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) told the House.

He read a report by Australian Health Department doctors who had examined Mr Stonehouse in January,

after he had stage-managed< I his disappearance from Britain via the United States, i“lt is considered that this' Iman has had a mental (breakdown which has resultjed in a depressed paranoic I state of mind,” the report i said. 1 “The breakdown was caused by his overloading I himself with responsibilities beyond his capability to j handle himself in political and business life, and to this lhas been added the extra (strain of things beyond his { control going wrong. “One result of this illness I has been irresponsible acts without proper heed to the consequences, in order to try to escape from his troubles." A former British Govern-; ment Minister, Mr Stonehouse gained entry to Aus-j tralia by using a passport in i the name of Joseph Arthur Markham, the dead husband' of one of his Parliamentary: constituents. He was de- i tained for three days in an: illegal immigrants’ centre, j but has since been living at l

I, various addresses in the j Melbourne area, hoping that . his plea to remain perJmanently in Australia would I be granted. Up to now he has been “protected by an Australian :law which gives automatic entry rights to all sitting il members of British Com- ; monwealth Parliaments, but the House of Commons has >' appointed a committee to l examine his disappearance i and to decide whether he i should be expelled from Pari liament. “Mr Stonehouse now i knows that once he ceases ito be a member of the ■ House of Commons he has • to get out of the country," Mr Cameron told Parliament. • “He now knows he has to make plans. He could have ■ fled from Australia, and he i will probably try to do that • now.” I The Minister added that ■ the British Government had ■ been told that Australia i would co-operate fully in , any extradition proceedings. Mr Stonehouse vanished

I from the beach at Miami. (Florida, last November, and (has since admitted that he engineered his disappearance because of “business troubles and intolerable pressures, including blackmail."