South Wales Argus reporter Iwan Davies scooped a world exclusive when he went to interview Ian Brewster, the head of crime scenes for Gwent Police.

Originally, Iwan had planned to write about him being the first forensic scientist to be admitted to the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners.

But as the interview developed and Iwan commented on what an interesting career he must have had, Mr Brewster decided to tell Iwan something he had kept to himself since 1987.

As a member of the Special Investigations Branch in the Army, Mr Brewster was the first person to investigate the death scene of Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy, in Spandau prison.

Hess, who had been prisoner there for 45 years, hanged himself because he was given a black orderly by the Americans who guarded him along with the British, French and Russian prison staff.

After revealing this, Mr Brewster said: “These facts have been kept secret over the years, but I suppose it’s OK to tell them now – Hess’s writings confirm that he was firstly an anti-Semite who agreed with extermination of the Jews, and he believed that black people should be next.

“When the Americans decided to give Hess a black orderly he was so outraged that he decided to kill himself.”

After discovering this story, the South Wales Argus unsurprisingly decided to run it ahead of the planned article.

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