Who is Michael Bilton?

Answer 1

Michael Bilton is a full time writer. He is a former documentary film maker and investigative feature writer for the London Sunday Times Magazine. His books include Four Hours in My Lai (1992) ISBN 0-670-8429606 (hc) and 0 14 01.7709 (pbk); WICKED BEYOND BELIEF: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2003) updated (2006) , ISBN-13 978-0-00-716963-4 and ISBN-10 0-00-716963-9 [see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article813891.ece] ; and Speaking Out: Untold Stories from the Falklands War(1987) ISBN 0 233 98404 6.

Born in London in 1947, he grew up in Sutton, Surrey, and went to work on the Sutton and Cheam Herald as a trainee in 1964. He had a series of jobs in provincial journalism before joining the staff of the London Evening News in 1973. The following year he was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of York. He graduated in political science in 1977 and was a recipient of a Social Science Research Council post-graduate research studentship at Oxford University (Trinity College, 1978 and Nuffield College, 1979. He contributed to the Nuffield Election study of the 1979 General Election with a chapter about The Press.

He joined the staff of the London Sunday Times in November, 1979 after working as a temporary reporter in the paper's newsroom while he was at Oxford. He became the Sunday Times' Northern Correspondent, reported from Washington DC during the Falklands War in 1982 and later became a member of the INSIGHT team.

In 1983 he joined the documentary department of Yorkshire Television as an associate producer. He produced and co-produced films about many subjects. "Hearts of Oak"(1989) concerned the sinking of the battleship HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow by a German submarine (U-47) at the outbreak of the second World War. "A Heartbeat Away" (1989) was an intimate portriat of Vice President Dan Quayle, filmed with unique access during the week of his innauguration. "Far East Ender"(1985) told the story of Billy Felton, a sergeant in the Army posted to Britain's only missile range in the Outer Hebrides and how he became a crofter, and a member of the island's community. "Akong and the Big Shrine Room" 1986 followed the building of a Tibetan Buddhist temple at Eskdalemuir in the Scottish borders. Petrona's Honour (1995) made for the BBC Everyman series, was set in Liverpool, where Petrona Lashley was due to become the city's first black Lord Mayor. Until the local newspaper revealed she had had a conviction for prostitution 20 years before. And the Labour Party swiftly moved to disown her. "Bad Trip to Edgwood", (1993) revealed how US Army conscripts in the 1960s were secretly used as guinea pigs and tested with LSD and other chemical agents without their knowledge and in breach of the Nuremberg protocols. Four Hours in My Lai (1989) won an Internantional Emmy and a British Academy Award (BAFTA); "The Falklands War:The Untold Story" (1987) won several international awards including a Rockie at Banff in 1988 and received a special mention from the jury at the 1988 Prix Italia. MANHUNT: The Search for the Yorkshire Ripper (1999) was nominated for a BAFTA. His book about the police hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper serial killer was shortlisted for a Gold Dagger for Non Fiction by the Crime Writer's Association.

Bilton has taught at the Danish School of Journalism in Arhus, Denmark; the Centre for Mid Career Training in Journalism in Copenhagen, and at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, where he spent a semester in 1999 teaching a course on documentary film making. He has been a visiting lecturer at Bournemouth University, London College of Communication, Surrey College of Art & Design and Lancaster University. In November, 2009, he was a guest lecturer and ran a workshop at annual conference of Nordic Association for Investigative Journalism in Copenhagen.

He acted as a consultant during the pre-production period of Oliver Stone's proposed PINKVILLE film project about the My Lai massacre, in 2007.

Primary source materials from his work are deposited at a number of archives -

The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at Kings College, University of London, holds material on:

My Lai

Bad Trip to Edgwood

Sandline International

The Imperial War Museum in London holds all 90+ interviews filmed in 1986/87 for "The Falklands War: the Untold Story"

The Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science, at University College, London, holds his Yorkshire Ripper archives

Michael Bilton has written regularly for the London Sunday Times Magazine since 1995. His subjects range from the Priest Abuse scandal in Boston to Napoleon, Sandline International, in Papua New Guinea in 1997. As a result of this major cover story Bilton was invited to give evidence about private military companies to British MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

Michael Bilton is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, based at the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington DC.

In 2006/7 he was one of 10 ICIJ members who co-operated on a major study into the fallout of the United States' activities after 9/11 called "Collatoral Damage" see

The Center for Public Integrity won the 2007 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award for online investigative journalism for Collateral Damage: Human Rights and U.S. Military Aid after 9/11.

Michael Bilton wrote about the European end of the CIA rendition programme and how prisoners were being sent to third world countries and tortured.

A second article by Bilton examined how the US Government had condoned torture practices outlawed by the American military in the Vietnam War

He wrote about how millions of images/videos of children being sexually abused are traded over internet in a London Sunday Times Magazine article: "Child Abuse: Catching the Criminals" on 25th October, 2009.

On 9th January, 2011, Michael Bilton's major story "The Texan who fell to Earth" - resulting from a four month investigation into Allen Stanford's 20 year reign in Antigua - was published, again by the London Sunday Times Magazine, which is now only available online by subscription. Stanford had at that point been held on remand for 18 months in Houston, Texas, accused of a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. When eventually convicted in June, 2012, he became the second biggest fraudster in history and was given a sentence of 110 years in Federal prison. The 'fraud' exposed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in February, 2009, centred on Stanford's offshore bank in Antigua - a small island in the Caribbean, where Stanford methodically ingratiated himself - becoming the biggest private owner of Government debt. It in turn granted huge favoures over development land, which Stanford hoped would make him fabulously rich.

In earlier writings in the London Daily Express in 2004 and 2008 - Bilton had returned to the subject of the serial killer - Peter Sutcliffe - held in Broadmoor maximum security hospital. The Yorkshire Rippper - had been jailed in 1981 for 20 life terms for 13 murders and seven attempted murders after a five year long reign of terror in the North of England in the 1970s. Bilton predicted that Sutcliffe would attempt to win his freedom using the British court system but that his terrible crimes were so aggravated, judges would never free him from jail. On 10th January, 2011, the Lord Chief Justice in the Appeal Court in London, pronounced Sutcliffe would have to spend the rest of his life behind bars. "Truth Behind Ripper's Bid for Freedom" 17th May, 2008,

A new edition of "Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper" was published by Harper Press in April, 2012. Since it was first published in 2003, the work has been re-printed many times and has gone through several updates. The 2012 edition has been completely updated with a re-designed cover and a new chapter exploring Peter Sutcliffe's attempt in 2010 and 2011 to win his freedom through the courts. It covers in detail the final Appeal Court judgement which ended Sutcliffe's attempts to win his freedom. The appeal revealed many hidden details about Sutcliffe's life behind bars, the sexual motivation behind his attacks, and medical opinions about his mental health.

In 2011 Michael Bilton decided to concentrate full-time on book-writing and contributing to the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington DC, with the occasional foray into teaching.