Derek Boorman

Educated at Wolstanton Grammar School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst,^[1] Boorman was commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1950.^[2] He was Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General at Headquarters 48th Gurkha Infantry Brigade and subsequently Commander of 51st Brigade in Hong Kong.^[3]

He was appointed Director of Military Operations at the Ministry of Defence in 1980^[4] and Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong in 1982.^[5] He went on to be Chief of Defence Intelligence in 1985:^[6] in that capacity he took the view that Mikhail Gorbachev's proposals for internal reform and deep cuts in missile stocks were genuine.^[7] He retired from the British Army in 1988.^[8]

He was also Colonel of the 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles from 1983 to 1988^[9] and Colonel of the Staffordshire Regiment from 1985 to 1990.^[10]

In October 1992 he was appointed a Member of the Government's Security Commission^[11] and in 1996 he accused Government Ministers of being untruthful in their evidence to the Arms to Iraq Inquiry.^[12] He retired from the Security Commission in 1998.^[13]

In 1994 he became Chairman of the Royal Hospitals Trust – a post he held until 1998.^[14] Then in 2000 he became a Deputy Pro-Chancellor of the University of Kent.^[15]

Boorman died on 25 April 2025, at the age of 94.^[16]