MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Queries about former Falklands Governor's girl friend

More revelations have appeared in the British media about the former Falklands Governor, 55-year-old Richard Ralph, now Ambassador to Romania, and his role in the sale of Romania's state owned steel company, Sidex, to an Indian billionaire, Lakshmi Mittal.

The newspapers recall that while he was Falklands Governor, his wife returned to England and he had an affair with a young woman less than half his age, Jemma Jackson, then 25. They reveal that she has been employed by the legal firm which worked for the Romanian Government on the steel company take-over.

Mr Ralph lives with her in his official residence in Bucharest where she uses the name Jemma Marlor. She began working for the British firm of Linklaters in the Romanian capital after the steel privatisation draft contract was signed but before the deal was finalised.

Mr Ralph is quoted as saying: "I see no conflict of interest here nor any perceived conflict of interest. There is a ?wall' between myself and Jemma on professional matters. I don't know any details about the work that she does and the clients she deals with. That is the way it should be for someone in my position...This story has become so distorted and so many untruths have been said about it that I don't want this hare to be running off wildly".

"Love affair stunned Falklands"

The Daily Mail relates the story, datelined Bucharest and London, under a banner headline: "The Randy Envoy and a Deepening Scandal". It also carries a picture of Mr Ralph in his Falklands Governor's uniform, and another picture of him with his young partner.

It says that Richard Ralph, a grandfather married for almost 30 years, struck up a passionate relationship with Jemma Jackson whom he met at a cocktail party as his official residence in Stanley. "It was", the newspaper says, "a love affair that stunned one of Britain's smallest outposts".

Miss Jackson had been working in a Port Stanley solicitor's office after studying law in England. "His friendship with a girl described as a ?cross between Kate Moss and a young version of Mrs Ralph' became one of the islands' worst-kept secrets...Not all the islands' population were happy when details of the governor's liaison leaked out, with one councillor claiming that elderly colleagues believed he should have been more discreet.... The flamboyant Ambassador is well-known among the Western expatriates in Bucharest and rode his Harley Davidson motorcycle all the way to Romania from Britain".

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