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ESQURE MAGAZINE ARTICLES

ESQUIRE: THE HUNT FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN
Imagine the kind of man that Central Casting in Hollywood would dig up for the role of the man the USA sent to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 to hunt Osama Bin Laden. Well, in real-life, Gary Bernsten from the CIA is that man and he fills the role with ease, humour and aplomb. Meeting him in New York, and listening to his revelations was extraordinary and gave me an insight into the day-to-day plans of this amazing manhunt, from his bosses' meetings in the White House with President Bush, right through to him sitting on an Afghan mountain listening to Osama Bin laden's voice on a captured walkie-talkie... He came within an ace of grabbing Bin Laden but was let down by one thing: a top-level US decision not to send mroe troops on the ground to help him. Again, truth is stranger than fiction. Small wonder Oliver Stone is making a movie of this tale....
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ESQUIRE: CSI: LONDON
This article examines the forensic aspects of the 7/7 terrorist attacks on London. By looking at the terrorist attacks through that lens I felt it was easier to understand the mechinacs of how the attacks occured and were planned. Although it was 99% a home-made attack in every sense, some strands remain unresolved: How much did UK intelligence know about the attackers before the blasts? What links did they have to countries like Pakistan?
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ESQUIRE: SEARCHING FOR MIKE TYSON
It sounded like a dream assignment for someone like me - a journalist who'd boxed as a teenager - to 'Go and speak to Mike Tyson...' So I flew to Las Vegas to meet him. Like many stories, it seemed like a good idea at the time... Download

ESQUIRE: GULF WAR SYNDROME: AN INVESTIGATION
I spent months travelling around the UK speaking to Gulf War vets; their families; scientists; and military experts, investigating whether troops were ill and dying as a result of exposure to chemicals, tablets and injections they'd been given. It was one of the most alarming and, oddly, ignored stories I've ever undertaken.
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ESQUIRE: ECHELON SPYING SYSTEM: AN INVESTIGATION
Investigating whether a US/UK spying system called 'Echelon' even existed was strange enough, but actually managing to interview an ex-Canadian spy who not only told me how it techincally worked, but also related how the spooks listening in managed to confuse the phrase 'bombers' (which they thought they'd heard) with the phrase 'embalmers' meant the story took a whole new turn.
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ESQUIRE: THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
I investigated this story about a British spy on the run in Paris over a couple of months during the winter of 1998/9. Most journalists avoided this man but I thought meeting him was worth the risk. Although Paris is great to work in I chiefly recall the freezing temperatures; the complex nature of David Shayler himself; and the creeping paranoia of the story itself.
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ESQUIRE: NORTHERN IRISH PARALMILITARY ABUSES
This investigation from 1999 remains one of the most disturbing and under-reported aspects of the situation in Northern Ireland. The guts and determination of the victims particularly impressed me. When I interviewed Maureen Kearney, the mother of one victim of an IRA hit-squad, she said she was literally dying of a broken heart. Shortly after this article was published, I heard that she'd passed away.
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ESQUIRE: STUART GAIR: A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE INVESTIGATION
In 1999 friends of a Scottish prisoner named Stuart Gair, who'd been jailed for murder 12 years earlier, asked me to investigate his case. I found a terrible miscarriage of justice had occured. Witness after witness that I tracked down told tales of police initmidation and corruption.
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ESQUIRE: UK SUICIDE BOMBERS
This 2004 investigation toook me on a journey into the radical elements of the UK Islamic community. Whilst leaders who repsented the majority of muslims condemned suicide bombing, others I met thought it was acceptable. Meeting a radical Muslim cleric who happily informed me he'd like to remove all western cultural values - whilst munching on a Burger King meal and juggling two cellphones - was one of my more surreal professional experiences. Download

ESQUIRE: SHADOW MAN
In 2001 I investigated the strange story of British undercover soldier Robert Nairac, who vanished in 1977 whilst working undercover as an IRA in Northern Ireland. I spoke to former classmates, commanding officers, IRA men and MI5 personnel to get to the bottom of what happened to him. It's one of the most disturbing and eerie tales I've ever worked on.
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ESQUIRE : BNP
The BNP is a UK political party which has far-right connections. Despite trying to ‘re-brand' themselves as something less scary, the reality of being the only journalist at one of their weekend country rallies was worrying and revealing.
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ESQUIRE: GORDON BROWN
The UK 's Chancellor of the Exchequer and presumed heir to Tony Blair's job is an inscrutable man. Everyone I met had different tales to tell about him. He's both bruising and sensitive simultaneously.
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ESQUIRE: FLEMING
I was sent to Jamaica to write a bio-piece about James Bond's creator Ian Fleming. Luckily, I was allowed to stay at the $5000 per-night Fleming home named, ‘Goldeneye'. I swear his spirit haunts the place. What a complex, reckless and talented man I discovered.
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ESQUIRE: MARTIN MCGUINNESS
The alleged IRA ‘Godfather' and Sinn Fein head negotiator, was nursing a flu when I met him in Belfast . But he took several hours to talk, show me around the Stormont Parliament and swat away my questions about his controversial past.
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ESQUIRE: OUTLAWS
This is really an Epilogue to my book of the same title. Being able to travel through the West in the USA in a 4x4 and track down Butch Cassidy's family and the Sundance Kid's relatives, was a dream come true. Then I bumped into Robert Redford as well….
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ESQUIRE: DAVID DEMPSEY
A very sad and disturbing story. Dempsey was a world-class chef with Gordon Ramsey in London . One night he went on a strange rampage through apartments and ended up dead after a fall. I tried to get to the bottom of what really occurred and to explain who this man was. It's a haunting tale.
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ESQUIRE: FORGER
John Myatt is probably the world's greatest art forger. I investigated his strange story and learned how some household paints, some KY Jelly and the contents of a vacuum cleaner plus a criminal mastermind, congealed into the greatest art world con of our times. You couldn't make it up.
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