Stuart Higgins
Stuart Higgins (born c.1956)[1] is a British public relations consultant and former newspaper editor.
In 1972 Higgins left school in Kingswood, on the outskirts of Bristol, and began his career as a reporter at the South West News, an agency founded by Roland Arblaster.[1][2]He began working for The Sun in 1979 as their West Country reporter.[3] He was arrested in 1982 by the police after being found with a Sun photographer "testing security" at Highgrove House, home of Charles, Prince of Wales.[1]
At one point, Kelvin MacKenzie printed Higgins' direct phone number in The Sun, billed him as the "human sponge" and asked readers to call Higgins to "get things off their chest".[4][1] In 1994, Higgins succeeded MacKenzie as editor of the newspaper.[5] In 1996, Higgins wrote a front page story about an intimate video purporting to feature Diana, Princess of Wales with James Hewitt. The video turned out to be a hoax.[1]
Higgins left The Sun in June 1998.[3] On 11 November 2003, Labour MP Clive Soley, using parliamentary privilege, alleged that News International had paid £500,000 'hush money' to a female employee who had accused Higgins of sexual harassment during his time at The Sun.[6] Soley also accused Rebekah Wade (now Brooks), then the newspaper's editor, of writing a threatening letter to the MP in order to discourage him from researching the issue.[7][5]
Higgins subsequently set up his own public relations company,[5] but sold the company in 2007.[8] In February 2013, it was reported that Higgins was in Pretoria, South Africa assisting athlete Oscar Pistorius, accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, in dealing with the press.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d e Andy Beckett "Soaking up the Sun", The Independent on Sunday, 13 October 1996
- ^ In his Leveson submission, see below, Higgins says he joined Arblasters of Bristol "around 1976",
- ^ a b "Leveson Inquiry: Response from Stuart Higgins", Leveson submission, January 2012
- ^ a b Media Monkey "Oscar Pistorius: can the 'Human Sponge' help handle the crisis?" guardian.co.uk, 15 February 2013
- ^ a b c David Hencke The case of the Sun editor, sexual harassment and a £500,000 payoff", The Guardian, 12 November 2003
- ^ Hansard, Col.188, 11 November 2003
- ^ Tom Leonard and Andrew Sparrow "MP accuses Sun of covering up office sex case", telegraph.co.uk, 12 November 2003
- ^ Chris Tryhorn "Higgins' PR firm bought by Fast Track", guardian.co.uk, 11 December 2007