A weekly newspaper landed a national scoop at the reopening of a Wetherspoon’s pub when a TV actor accused a former Countdown presenter of being a government spy.

Chester Chronicle chief reporter David Holmes interviewed Ricky Tomlinson at the pub relaunch after the former Brookside and Royle Family actor was invited along to cut the ribbon.

But the routine assignment turned into a major scoop when Mr Tomlinson told him he believed former Countdown host Richard Whiteley was a member of the security service – claiming he had evidence to boot.

David’s story about the allegations against Mr Whiteley, who died in 2005, has since been picked up by several other regional and national publications.

Ricky Tomlinson, left, and Richard Whiteley

Mr Tomlinson had been invited to cut the ribbon at the relaunch of the pub because back in 1972, while working as a plasterer, he helped organise the first national building workers’ strike from an upstairs room in the city centre hostelry.

He and his friend Des Warren were later jailed for ‘conspiracy to intimidate’ while picketing in Shrewsbury after being among 24 prosecuted, and Mr Tomlinson has been fighting with his fellow pickets to clear the names of the ‘Shrewsbury Pickets’ ever since.

Explaining the interview, David told HTFP: “As a multi-media journalist I took a few pictures and a video of Ricky addressing assembled activists and drinkers before deciding to grab a few words by the bar.

“The late Richard Whiteley, a TV personality I knew not only from Countdown but that incident where he got bitten by a ferret on a Yorkshire news programme, was not a name I expected to come up in conversation.

“Ricky wanted to explain the long fight to ‘get justice’. He was struggling to get hold of classified government papers that he believes will prove the Shrewsbury Pickets were the victim of a political conspiracy, but he had secured a number of what he called ‘confidential’ documents and insisted that he knew as a matter of fact that Whiteley was a government spy.”

Mr Tomlinson told David that Mr Whiteley had presented an anti-union TV documentary, paid for by the security services, which aired as the jury went out to consider its verdict in his case and that of the other Shrewsbury Pickets back in 1973.

David added: “He claimed the show swayed two jurors, helping the state to secure its convictions. I asked if I could see the evidence but for unknown reasons he declined. However, he was unwavering in his allegation and since you can’t libel the dead, we went with this as the top line.

“Everyone enjoys their moment in the sun and I’m really hoping this bizarre story gets a mention on some satirical news show as happened when my video of former Labour leader Ed Miliband getting mobbed by a hen party went viral. Here’s hoping.”