Barrie Penrose (26 January 1942 – 5 July 2020) was a British

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

, interviewer and trainer.

Life and career

Born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

, Penrose was educated at John Ruskin Grammar School and later at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. He worked for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

'' in Paris, ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' and

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

, initially as Barrie Sturt-Penrose. In December 1979,

John Cairncross John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influ ...

– who had secretly admitted to an

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

interrogator that he had spied for the Soviets – was approached by Penrose and made a full confession to the journalist. The news was widely publicized, leading many to believe that Cairncross was the so-called "fifth man" of the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...

spy ring. This designation would be confirmed in 1989 by

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

agent

Oleg Gordievsky Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...

, who defected to Britain. Penrose wrote ''The Pencourt File'' (with BBC colleague Roger Courtiour) based on information recounted by

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

, shortly after he had resigned as British prime minister. Wilson had requested contact with the journalists about conspiracies that he claimed had occurred during his period in government. Penrose died on 5 July 2020 due to complications of

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

Bibliography

* * * *

References

1942 births 2020 deaths People from Croydon British investigative journalists Neurological disease deaths in the United Kingdom Deaths from Parkinson's disease People educated at John Ruskin Grammar School Alumni of the London School of Economics {{UK-journalist-stub