Percy Hoskins

Percy Kellick Hoskins (28 December 1904 – 5 February 1989) was the chief crime reporter for the British newspaper the Daily Express in the 1950s. He also provided stories for radio and television crime shows, such as Whitehall 1212, and Secrets of Scotland Yard.

Hoskins earned a mixture of notoriety and admiration within his profession due to the stance he took regarding suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams. Hoskins was the only reporter with a national paper to support Adams when arrested in 1956, while the rest of the press unanimously assumed Adams's guilt. Hoskins's stance was seen by his peers as career suicide, but, in the end, Adams was acquitted. Lord Beaverbrook, the paper's proprietor, phoned Hoskins after the verdict and told him, "Two people were acquitted today", meaning that Hoskins would keep his job and his reputation. This quote later became the title of a book Hoskins wrote about the case. During the trial, Hoskins befriended Adams, and when Adams died in 1983, he bequeathed Hoskins £1,000. Hoskins gave the money to charity.

Life Hoskins was born in Bridport, Dorset, England. He joined the Evening Standard when he was 19 and then moved on to the Daily Express, where he worked for more than five decades in the crime department, eventually becoming its chief reporter. He was famed for the friendships he cultivated with policemen, who would often act as his sources. He "kept open house for senior police officers at his flat at 55 Park Lane".

He was seen by many as "amiable [and] rotund" and boasted a long friendship with his "lookalike" Alfred Hitchcock, with whom Hoskins once posed in Soho for a 'bookends picture'. and, at the height of the press hysteria, figures of 400 victims were being mentioned.

Hoskins's stance led Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of his paper, to question Hoskins's (and therefore the newspaper's) take on the story, since every other paper was convinced of Adams's guilt. When Adams was acquitted of one count of murder at the Old Bailey in 1957 (another charge was withdrawn via a nolle prosequi), Lord Beaverbrook phoned Hoskins and told him, "Two people were acquitted today", meaning that Hoskins was to retain his job and his reputation.

After the trial, Adams was whisked away to a safe house by Hoskins and interviewed for two weeks. The resulting articles appeared exclusively in the Express. Hoskins and Adams remained friends for the rest of Adams's life, and each year, on the anniversary of the acquittal, Adams would phone Hoskins to thank him for another year of his life. He also appeared in, and contributed to, the Harry Towers series Secrets of Scotland Yard with Clive Brook, which ran from 1949-1951.To add to the air of authenticity, Brook sometimes discussed matters relating to the dramatised cases with Hoskins. Hoskins also helped produce the crime prevention programme It's Your Money They're After for the BBC in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police though it was judged to have had little effect on crime figures.

Cinema and television writing Hoskins provided the stories for the following programmes and films. The Blue Parrot (1953) (story "Gunman" (with John Le Mesurier)) Dangerous Cargo (1954) (with John Le Mesurier) Burnt Evidence (1954)

Appearances On 17 September 1957 Percy Hoskins appeared on Game 1 of the American TV Show, "To Tell the Truth" with panellists Polly Bergen, Ralph Bellamy, Kitty Carlisle, and Hy Gardner.