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Charles Drace-Francis

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British diplomat

Charles David Stephen Drace-Francis, CMG (born 1943) is a retired British diplomat.

He was educated at Oxford where he took a first-class degree in history in 1964. He shared rooms with Gareth Stedman-Jones and Roderick Floud.

After posts in Teheran, Hong Kong and Brussels, Drace-Francis was appointed British Chargé d'Affaires to Afghanistan from 1984 to 1987, during the Soviet-Afghan War. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for his work in the latter capacity. He was High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby from 1997 to 2000.

Telegrams of his reports on Conservative Party treasurer Michael Ashcroft in Belize and Turks and Caicos Islands, written in early 1997, were published in The Times in July 1999. Drace-Francis claimed that Ashcroft had "threatened over breakfast to stir up trouble for Britain in the Turks and Caicos Islands unless he was helped to break into the islands' banking business."

As a result of this the Foreign Office's Permanent Under Secretary John Kerr initiated an inquiry with the aim of identifying the source of the leak. The inquiry proved controversial, and Drace-Francis later resigned. As such he won the sympathy of his erstwhile antagonist Michael Ashcroft, who recognised him to be the victim of Whitehall machinations rather than the true source of the leak.

References

  1. "DRACE-FRANCIS, Charles David Stephen". Who's Who 2012. A & C Black. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  2. "Gareth Stedman Jones". Alanmacfarlane.com. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  3. Great Britain. Diplomatic Service Administration Office; Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2001). The Diplomatic Service list. H.M.S.O. ISBN 978-0-11-591771-4. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
  4. ^ "British Ambassadors and High Commissioners 1880-2010" (PDF). Gulabin.com. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  5. "Islanders fear UK is 'quitting the Pacific'". Pacificislandsuk.org. Summer 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
  6. ^ "Living on his Wits". The Economist. 15 July 1999. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
  7. "Relentless Ashcroft hunts down leakers". The Guardian. 28 January 2002. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
  8. Michael Ashcroft (2005). "Dirty Politics, Dirty Times" (PDF). London. p. 274. Retrieved 11 April 2022.


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