Programme 12: 30th September 2007

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Harry Templeton, Glasgow printer who stood up to Robert Maxwell

Harry Templeton had a secure job as a printer for Mirror Group newspapers in Glasgow.  But, when the group was taken over by the formidable Robert Maxwell, the workers elected Templeton to represent them as a trustee on the Mirror pensions board.

At meeting after meeting, Templeton objected to what he considered Maxwell's sinister changes to the workers' pension fund.  In his objections, Templeton rarely ever received support - even from the other employee representatives on the board.  Eventually, Maxwell fired him from his job and Templeton says he found himself blacklisted in the Glasgow printing world.  Nobody wanted to hear about his concerns for the workers' pensions.  That all changed when Maxwell died in 1991 and an investigation uncovered a massive fraud in which Maxwell had stolen £400m from the Mirror pension fund.

Harry Templeton's whistleblowers organisation, Public Concern at Work, can be contacted at www.pcaw.co.uk