Derek Boorman

Educated at Wolstanton Grammar School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst,[1] Boorman was commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1950.[2] He was Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General at Headquarters 48th Gurkha Infantry Brigade and subsequently Commander of 51st Brigade in Hong Kong.[3]

He was appointed Director of Military Operations at the Ministry of Defence in 1980[4] and Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong in 1982.[5] He went on to be Chief of Defence Intelligence in 1985:[6] in that capacity he took the view that the Mikhail Gorbachev's proposals for internal reform and deep cuts in missile stocks were genuine.[7] He retired from the British Army in 1988.[8]

He was also Colonel of the 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles from 1983 to 1988[9] and Colonel of the Staffordshire Regiment from 1985 to 1990.[10]

In October 1992 he was appointed a Member of the Government's Security Commission[11] and in 1996 he accused Government Ministers of being untruthful in their evidence to the Arms to Iraq Inquiry.[12] He retired from the Security Commission in 1998.[13]

In 1994 he became Chairman of the Royal Hospitals Trust - a post he held until 1998.[14] Then in 2000 he became a Deputy Pro-Chancellor of the University of Kent.[15]