Liar, Liar

Who is Britain’s biggest liar? Is it “historian” David Irvine, who has sought to deny that the holocaust ever took place? Or perhaps disgraced ex-Tory minister and London Mayoral candidate Jeffrey Archer, who has invented most of his own personal history and passed himself of as a novelist for many years (not to mention the small matter of perjury)? Maybe your vote would go to another former Tory minister and perjurer, Jonathan Aitken, who even managed to persuade his daughter to lie for him during his unsuccessful libel action against The Guardian? How about Neil Hamilton, yet another former Conservative MP, who took money from Mohammed Al Fayed and then tried to deny it? Whilst all of these men are worthy candidates for the title, we can exclusively reveal that Britain’s biggest liar is in fact one Charlie Ronce.

Although virtually unknown to the general public, Ronce has become infamous in media circles for successfully promulgating some of the greatest lies ever to see print. On several occasions he has succeeded in selling national newspapers and TV producers entirely bogus stories. Whilst many of these stories were exposed as false before publication, several have seen the light of day, resulting in a number of libel actions and expensive out-of-Court settlements. One of the most notorious of the stories to see print occurred in 1992, after Ronce had convinced the editor of a popular tabloid that the amazingly youthful good looks of popular singer and professional virgin Sir Cliff Richard were due to a diabolical pact made in 1957. Ronce introduced one of the tabloid’s reporters to 67-year old Reggie Painter, supposedly a former High Priest of the Willesden Satanist Chapter, who claimed to have presided over the ceremony in Highgate cemetery, during which Beelzebub himself appeared.

In reality, Painter was a retired school caretaker from Neasden who drank in the same pub as Ronce’s father. As a result of the bargain struck that night, according to Painter, Cliff Richard got to retain his unfeasibly good looks, but at a terrible price. Once every month he would turn into a ravening monster, forced to sacrifice a virgin and bathe in her blood in order to return to human form. According to Ronce, Cliff Richard’s involvement with the Church was merely a convenient cover for his activities, (pointing out that the moral campaigners had originally condemned Richard’s performances as being too carnal - perhaps suspecting his terrible secret), and gave him easy access to numerous virginal choristers. Ronce claimed to have photographs of Cliff Richard actually lying in a bath full of blood, taken secretly at his London home. He also had the testimonies of several maids from hotels all around the world, who complained of the unusual dark red rings they had found around Cliff Richard’s bath after he had checked out. Amazingly, Ronce was paid £5,000 for the story. Within hours of the story being printed Sir Cliff’s solicitors had started legal proceedings for libel, thousands of copies of the newspaper had been recalled and pulped, and Ronce had fled the country.