Maxwell widow's book 'could prejudice trial'

PENSIONERS defrauded by disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell are pressing to have the publication of his widow's autobiography delayed. They claim it will prejudice the trial of his sons Kevin and Ian, who both held senior positions in their father's publishing empire.

The Association of Mirror Pensioners says it will be writing to Attorney General Sir Nicholas Lyel to try to block Betty Maxwell's A Mind Of My Own, which is due out on 25 November.

The Maxwell Pensioners Action Group is also trying to postpone publication of the book, which will be serialised by the Sunday Times to coincide with the third anniversary of Maxwell's death.

Government law officers are also coming under pressure from former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade and Labour MP David Winnick to take out an injunction to delay publication until after the trial.

Mr Greenslade, the author of Maxwell's Fall, who has seen extracts from the book, said: 'What I've seen could be deemed to prejudice the prosecution case. Betty Maxwell talks about the children being hit, Maxwell grilling the children, making them scapegoats and reducing them to tears, particularly with reference to Kevin and Ian.

'The average reader would feel sympathy, and in the sense of feeling sympathy, it must be prejudicial.'

Mr Winnick, who led delegations to seek missing Maxwell money thought to have been lodged outside Britain, said justice demanded that the Attorney General pursue an injunction.

'Why is this book being allowed to come out when it is quite likely that the case against the sons will not be finished by then?' he asked.

He, Mr Greenslade and the pensioners point to the objections which the Maxwells' solicitors, Peters and Peters, have made to any possibly detrimental material being published before the trial.

In February, the Attorney General prevented the opening of Maxwell the Musical, a show based on Maxwell's life featuring adapted Gilbert and Sullivan tunes.

Evan Steadman, its producer, who lost more than pounds 500,000 on the venture, said he would be complaining about the book's publication. 'If there is any justice, it should be banned.'

A BBC documentary, by Maxwell's biographer Tom Bower, has also been delayed for legal reasons.

Tony Boram, chairman of the Association of Mirror Pensioners, said: 'We don't want anything that gets in the way, or could be construed as damaging the trial.'

Kenneth Trench, chair of Maxwell Pensioners Action Group, added: 'It will be three years in November since Maxwell died and 20,000 pensioners are still suffering mental anguish and despair.

'If Betty Maxwell is publishing the book to try to persuade pensioners no one is to blame she'll fail; if she's doing it for money I hope she makes a contribution to the pension fund from which her husband looted pounds 300m.'

But the publishers of the book, Sidgwick and Jackson, said that claims that the book would prejudice the trial were 'ludicrous'. Said a spokesman: 'We see no problems at all.'