Her meeting at a dance-club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. A shooting incident between two of her other lovers caused the press to investigate her, revealing that her affairs could be threatening national security. In the House of Commons , Profumo denied any improper conduct but later admitted that he had lied. This incident discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in , in what became known as the Profumo affair. Keeler was alleged to have been a prostitute - which was not a criminal offence.
Ward was, however, found guilty of being her pimp β a trial was instigated after the embarrassment caused to the government.
The trial has since been considered a miscarriage of justice; a charade of the establishment to protect itself. Keeler was born in Uxbridge , Middlesex. Her father, Colin Keeler later known as Colin King , abandoned the family in She was brought up by her mother, Julie Ellen Payne, and stepfather, Edward Huish, in a house made from two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury. In , at the age of 9, Keeler was sent to a holiday home in Littlehampton because the school health inspector said that she was suffering from malnutrition.
The child was born prematurely on 17 April , and survived just six days. That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London.
She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl.
