Kenneth de Courcy


Kenneth Hugh de Courcy was an editor of the British subscription newsletter Intelligence Digest, as well as a confidant of British King Edward VIII. In the 1940s, de Courcy was part of a plot by conservative members of the British royal court to return the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Britain and establish a regency.

Life and career

Kenneth de Courcy was born in Galway, Ireland in 1909. He became wealthy as a businessman, owning a chain of tobacco shops and other businesses.
In 1934 de Courcy became secretary of the Imperial Policy Group, a grouping of right-wing Conservative MPs, which focused on "the importance of Imperial development" and "close friendship with the United States". Later the group supported appeasement of Nazi Germany as the best means of preserving the British Empire, and in that capacity de Courcy travelled Europe making high level contacts.
In 1934 he founded Courcy’s Intelligence Service to provide early warning intelligence to businesses and government. Four years later he began Intelligence Digest were intercepting his mail and telephone communications.
In the 1960s, via a company called Sarsden Consolidated Properties, de Courcy planned a garden city development in Southern Rhodesia. He was unable to return the funds put up by investors and was jailed for seven years for fraud. De Courcy escaped from custody when he was allowed to visit his lawyer as part of his appeal, although he was recaptured.
De Courcy went on to edit publications such as Banker's Digest and Special Office Brief.
In December 2005 an appeal to De Courcy's 1964 court case was upheld as a miscarriage of justice by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.