John faked his own death in a story that captivated the world. His plan was a copycat crime.

When UK politician John Stonehouse's clothes were found in a pile on Miami Beach in November 1974, many presumed he drowned while swimming.

Obituaries were posted about the late Labour MP, despite authorities never finding his corpse. Whether he drowned or took his own life was never confirmed, but the public were told that Stonehouse had most definitely lost his life.

Then, he turned up alive and well a month later in Australia. He was finally tracked down in Melbourne, and arrested on Christmas Eve in 1974.

The scandalous tale of deception captivated the world — and now, there's a new TV series exploring the original story where Stonehouse is believed to have gotten the inspiration for his copycat crime.

The Day of the Jackal lays out a blueprint to disappear.

It's believed Stonehouse took a leaf from Freddie Forsyth's 1972 novel, The Day of the Jackal, which exposed a loophole that allowed a criminal to obtain a passport by assuming the name of a dead child.

In The Day of the Jackal, a professional assassin, known as The Jackal, is contracted to kill French President Charles de Gaulle.

The Jackal searches graveyards for the headstone of a child who would be roughly the same age as him if they were still alive. He then buys a copy of the child's birth certificate and applies for a passport, giving him a new identity to carry out his mission.

Based on the novel, 2024 TV series The Day of the Jackal reimagines the story in a contemporary setting.

The new series, now streaming on Binge, follows British assassin The Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) and the intelligence officer tasked with capturing him (Lashana Lynch) in a cat-and-mouse chase after he manages to kill the man tipped to become the next Chancellor of Germany.

Many believe The Day of the Jackal's identity fraud tale inspired Stonehouse's own stranger-than-fiction story.

Watch the trailer for Peacock's new original series, The Day of the Jackal. Post continues below.

What happened to John Stonehouse?

The UK member of parliament stole the identity of two dead men to fake his death and escape to Australia to start a new life.

In the lead up to his disappearance, Stonehouse's house of cards had begun to fall apart.

The MP had long been married to his wife Barbara Stonehouse, with whom he shared children. However, he had started up an affair with his secretary, 21 years his junior, Sheila Buckley.

In his career he'd been ambitious, even tipped for the top spot of Prime Minister at one point, but over time his political career stalled.

In 1969, he was named as a Czech secret agent. Stonehouse denied the claim, but the damage to his political career was done.

Meanwhile, his financial endeavours were also failing. He had set up various companies but by 1974, most of them were in trouble, the BBC reports. According to the ABC, Stonehouse had been involved in a series of fraudulent dealings, lying to those closest to him including family members who were unaware of his treachery.

With the Department of Trade and Industry looking into his affairs, Stonehouse set a plan in motion to flee the country and start fresh.

He travelled to Miami under the guise of a business trip and left a pile of clothes on the beach to make it appear he had drowned or disappeared at sea. Obituaries were published in the papers despite no body being found.

Meanwhile, Stonehouse was on his way to Australia with a passport under the assumed identity of 'Joseph Markham', the dead husband of a constituent.

Police weren't sold on his disappearance, but his wife Barbara believed he had died in a tragic accident.

She told BBC News: "I've heard some extraordinary rumours and they're all so much out of character with my husband's personality that they're just not worth answering or worth thinking about. I'm convinced in my mind that it was a drowning accident. All the evidence that we've had points to the fact that he was drowned."

While she was grieving, Stonehouse was preparing for his new life with his mistress, Sheila.

Sheila had shipped some of her clothes to Australia a month prior, had transatlantic telephone calls from him and had sent him semi-coded letters through one of his Australian banks, per the BBC.

Shiela Buckley outside court in 1976. Image: Getty.

Secret files released in 2005 revealed Stonehouse spent months rehearsing his new identity as Joseph.

"He spent short periods posing as Mr Markham, a private and 'honest' individual, which apparently led to reduced tension," the psychiatric report said. "He began to dislike the personality of Stonehouse and came to believe that his wife, colleagues and friends would be better off without him.

"He therefore devised his escape to get away from the identity of Stonehouse."

Stonehouse opened a bank account under Markham's name and the name "Clive Mildoon".

A bank teller caught on to the Englishman's dodgy cheques and Melbourne authorities were put on his trail. Australian police initially suspected he was Lord Luncan, a missing Englishman suspected of murdering his children's nanny, per The Guardian.

Upon his arrest, Stonehouse was asked to pull up his trouser leg to confirm whether he had the same scar as Luncan.

On Christmas Eve, 1974, Stonehouse had to reveal his true identity.

UK politician John Stonehouse and wife Barbara in 1957. Image: Getty.

Not realising the phone was being recorded, Stonehouse called his wife in the UK and confessed.

"Hello, darling. Well, they picked up the false identity here. You would realise from all this that I have been deceiving you. I'm sorry about that, but in a sense I'm glad it's all over," he said, per the BBC.

Six months later, Stonehouse was finally deported and escorted back home by Scotland Yard.

In a personal statement to parliament in October 1975, Stonehouse said he suffered a "complete mental breakdown".

"A new parallel personality took over — separate and apart from the original man, who was resented and despised by the parallel personality for the ugly humbug and sham of the recent years of his public life," he said.

"The parallel personality was uncluttered by the awesome tensions and stresses suffered by the original man, and he felt, as an ordinary person, a tremendous relief in not carrying the load of anguish which had burdened the public figure.

"The collapse and destruction of the original man came about because his idealism in his political life had been utterly frustrated and finally destroyed by the pattern of events, beyond his control, which had finally overwhelmed him."

John Stonehouse returns to Heathrow Airport to be charged with fraud, conspiracy and forgery in 1975. Image: Getty.

Stonehouse represented himself in court on 21 counts of theft, fraud, forgery, deception and wasting police time. After 68 days, on August 6, 1976, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, per The Guardian.

Eleven days later, he finally resigned as MP.

Stonehouse served three years and was released early on good behaviour and due to suffering three heart attacks.

His wife divorced him in 1978 and Stonehouse went on to marry his former secretary Sheila in 1981 and the couple had a child together.

The remarkable story was the centre of the 2023 three-part drama, Stonehouse, starring Succession's Matthew Macfadyen and Bodyguard's Keeley Hawes as on-screen husband and wife John and Barbara Stonehouse.

Stonehouse died, for real this time, from a heart attack aged 62 in 1988.

Feature image: Getty.