THE BOOK…
Fleet Street legend Ted Hynds takes on Billy’s Story…
“Ted Hynds is a veteran Fleet Street journalist as both staffer and freelance.”
He has covered major news stories over the past six decades from the Eithiopian famine to IRA bombings.
At the start of his freelance career he was a witness at the wedding of Profumo affair call girl Mandy Rice-Davis.
Unknown to him at the time she had briefly been Billy Sutton's lover too. This persuaded him of the truths behind Billy's sensational story and led him to take on the biography.
Ted was also the first reporter to fly over the Aberfan primary school disaster with his news agency photographer.
It was in Devon he covered the arrest of Great Train robber Bruce Reynolds and the Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott scandal.Back in London he became a top investigator for the Sunday People and later for ATV's Cook Report.
Along the way he interviewed the Kray Twins , both in jail and Broadmoor - where he met the Yorkshire Ripper - and covered major crimes like Brighton's Babes in the Wood murders.
While working for Roger Cook on the horror killing of Rachel Nickell he met Colin Stagg.- the man wrongly accused of her murder.
It was the start of a thirty year friendship that saw him become Colin's biographer and help him obtain a £706,000 award for wrongful arrest.
They have appeared on many TV documentaries about the case - including one to be broadcast later this year.
Ted moved to the westcountry at the turn of the century, but continued investigations for the since defunct News of the World.
His skills have also been used by lawyers and his copy still appears regularly in the national press.
He says he will never retire.
A word from Billy...
I’m deeply honoured and delighted that my dear friend Ted Hynds, an outstanding writer, and legendary figure in the days of fleet street, when journalists were the real deal is working with me to create my biography.