John Ryman QC (7 November 1930 – 3 May 2009) was a British Labour Party

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) who sat as an

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MP for his last year in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

. Ryman was educated at

Leighton Park School Leighton Park School is a co-educational Independent school (United Kingdom), independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Reading, Berkshire, Reading in South East England. The school's ethos is closely tied to the Quaker values, havin ...

, Reading, and

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...

. Ryman was a barrister and a fox-hunter. He was elected MP for Blyth in the October 1974 general election, ousting the incumbent Eddie Milne (who had been re-elected as an Independent Labour MP at the February 1974 election after being deselected as the official Labour candidate). In 1976 was fined £400 in under the

Representation of the People Act 1949 The Representation of the People Act 1949 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act consolidated previous electoral law, but also made some changes to administration. Representation of the People amendments followed in 1969, 19 ...

and the

Perjury Act 1911 The Perjury Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo 5 c 6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates the offence of perjury and a number of similar offences. This Act has effect as if section 89 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 and section 80 o ...

for falsifying his election expenses return and overspending, although the election result stood. In a close Parliament, Ryman's frequent absences from Parliament (either to continue his legal work or for other reasons) tried the patience of the whips. On one celebrated occasion the Chief Whip Bob Mellish went on the radio to ask listeners to get in touch if they had spotted him. When the German Social Democrat

Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Cha ...

urged the Labour Party to support British membership of the

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, Ryman responded with "Why should this patronising

Hun The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

lecture the British Labour Party?" Ryman held off a strong challenge from Milne in the 1979 general election, holding his seat with a majority of over 7,000. The constituency was renamed

Blyth Valley Blyth Valley was a local government district and borough in south-east Northumberland, England, bordering the North Sea and Tyne and Wear. The two principal towns were Blyth and Cramlington. Other population centres include Seaton Delaval, and ...

for the 1983 general election, when the newly formed

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SDP) cut his majority to 3,243. In 1986, he announced that he was leaving the Labour Party and sat as an

until he retired at the 1987 general election. His successor was

Ronnie Campbell Ronald Campbell (born 14 August 1943) is a former British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Blyth Valley from 1987 until 2019. Early life Campbell was born in Tynemouth, and grew up with seven siblings. He atten ...

. On 23 April 1992 Ryman was convicted of defrauding two women of their life savings. He had pretended to be the director of a

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and told the women that they would get 22·5% interest, but in fact paid the money to his ex-wife for maintenance payments. Ryman was given a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence.

Personal life

Ryman was a former husband of

Shirley Summerskill Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill (born 9 September 1931) is a British Labour Party politician and former government minister, who served as the Member of Parliament for Halifax from 1964 to 1983. Early life Summerskill was born in London, ...

, another Labour MP. They married in 1957 but had divorced by the time he entered Parliament.''The New York Times Biographical Service'', Volume 6
page 1614 He was married five times in all. He claimed to have invested some money belonging to his fifth wife Nicola, a wealthy widow, in a high-yield Swiss bank account but in fact squandered the money on a horse, Jaguar car and holidays on the

Orient Express The ''Orient Express'' was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company ''Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits'' (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe and int ...

. He had previously narrowly escaped being prosecuted by the family of a mistress whose money he had also claimed to have invested in a Swiss account.

Notes

References

* ''Times Guide to the House of Commons'' 1983 * Richard Duce, "Ex-MP jailed for swindling women" (''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 24 April 1992) * ''The

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'' 1999 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ryman, John 1930 births 2009 deaths English fraudsters British politicians convicted of fraud Independent politicians in England Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Independent members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 People educated at Leighton Park School Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford 20th-century English businesspeople Spouses of British politicians