Hi,
The loss of someone who stood against the many and fought unpopular fights, that others turned away from, has broken today. A name I grew up with and was always aware of, only now do I realise how important he was.
A man who served in the Senior Service on the very dangerous Artic Convoys, forget the risk by U-Boats and German Aircraft, the weather alone was far more ruthless. Brave men who still parade in their white berets to reflect the artic snow and ice. Anyway here is his story…
The author, broadcaster and campaigner Sir Ludovic Kennedy has died aged 89.
A former BBC Panorama journalist, Sir Ludovic spent decades investigating miscarriages of justice, including the case of the Birmingham Six.
He contributed to the abolition of the death penalty and was also president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.
He is understood to have died on Sunday at a nursing home in Salisbury, Wiltshire, after contracting pneumonia. He leaves four children.
Sir Ludovic was married to ballet dancer and actress Moira Shearer - star of the Classic film The Red Shoes - for 56 years, until her death in January 2006 at the age of 80. The couple had one son and three daughters.
Tributes have paid by senior figures in the worlds of journalism, law, politics and campaigning.
Executions
As a young man, Sir Ludovic joined the Royal Navy and his ship HMS Tartar was involved in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
After the war, he attended Oxford University and went on to become a successful journalist.
During his career, he carried out his own investigations into a number of high-profile criminal cases.
Among them was that of Derek Bentley who was hanged for shooting dead a policeman even though someone else pulled the trigger.
His most famous book, 10 Rillington Place, caused a national outcry when it argued that another executed man, Timothy Evans, did not murder his baby daughter.
Sir Ludovic maintained that the serial killer John Christie was responsible, and after a police inquiry, Evans was granted a posthumous pardon in 1970.
Human rights lawyer Gareth Pierce - whom Sir Ludovic worked with on a series of miscarriages of justice - said he was “profoundly committed” to the cases he took up.
“He sustained his commitments until they were victorious,” she said.
Defence lawyer Joe Beltrami, who also worked with Sir Ludovic, said he was the last of the great campaigning journalists but was “very modest”.
“He had great determination to win and he won more often than he lost. I admired the man.”
‘Controversial causes’
Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, called Sir Ludovic “one of the giants of post-war broadcasting.
“His integrity and the tenacity of his investigative journalism, particularly where he saw injustice, won him the respect and trust of generations of audiences,” he said.
For much of his life, Sir Ludovic was a member of the Liberal Party and its successor, the Liberal Democrats, and stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate in 1958.
He quit the party in 2001 when the then leader Charles Kennedy refused to endorse assisted dying, and stood for Parliament again unsuccessfully as an independent candidate on a pro-euthanasia platform.
He later rejoined the Lib Dems and current leader Nick Clegg paid tribute to him.
“Ludovic Kennedy was one of the great thinkers of his generation,” he said.
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 He was a passionate advocate of assisted dying for terminally ill people 
Sarah Wootton
Dignity in Dying |
“His pursuit of justice and his championing of sometimes unpopular and controversial causes marked him out as a true liberal.”
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said Sir Ludovic was “an outstanding broadcaster”.
“He was a lifelong free-thinking member of the Liberal Party, but he was also a long-standing advocate of Scottish independence, and in later life he frequently endorsed SNP campaigns,” he added.
Mr Salmond said although Sir Ludovic had “friends and admirers across the political spectrum, no one doubted his journalistic integrity and independence”.
‘Bit of an anarchist’
Richard Ingrams, co-founder of satirical magazine Private Eye, said that while Sir Ludovic had connections with the Liberal party - and “a very impeccable establishment background” - he was really “a bit of an anarchist”.
“For somebody like that to be engaged in the exposure of miscarriages of justice - it gave him an advantage,” he told the BBC. “He couldn’t be dismissed as a kind of left-wing lunatic or anything like that.”
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying - formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society - said the organisation was saddened.
“He was a passionate advocate of assisted dying for terminally ill people, whose compassion and vigorous intellect were an asset to the organisation,” she said.
Edinburgh-born Sir Ludovic was a prominent supporter of the British Humanist Association (BHA).
BHA chief executive Hanne Stinson said he was a “progressive campaigner on many fronts” and would be “sorely missed”.
