Club Lunch – John MacLennan: Homosexuality, Paedophilia and Government Suppression of a Scandal

In 1980, Inspector John MacLennan was found on the floor of his locked flat – he had been shot five times in the chest. The police who arrived on the scene and saw his body and the suicide note assumed the gay Scottish police officer had taken his own life. Others were suspicious and called foul play. The year-long public inquiry that followed – the most expensive in Hong Kong history – called 110 witnesses from pimps and prostitutes to the city’s most celebrated and raised some serious issues. Nigel Collett’s new book raises even more questions and places this case against a much bigger scandal that was brushed under the carpet – the sexual exploitation of underage boys by prominent figures in Hong Kong.

Nigel Collett is a Hong Kong businessman and part-time writer of historical biography. He served for 20 years in the British Army, retiring as a Lieutenant-Colonel, and since then has been Managing Director of Gurkha International, two companies that find employment for men and women from Nepal on the cruise liners of the world.