The Scott Report (the Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions) was a judicial inquiry commissioned in 1992 after reports of arms sales in the 1980s to Iraq by British companies surfaced. The report was conducted by Sir Richard Scott, then a Lord Justice of Appeal. It was published in 1996. Much of the report was secret.

In the late 1980s, Matrix Churchill, a British (Coventry) aerospace quality machine tools manufacturer, that had been bought by the Iraqi government, and was exporting machines used in weapons manufacture to Iraq. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, its products later found in Iraq, were among the highest quality of their kind in the world. They were 'dual use' machines that 'could' be used to manufacture weapons parts. Such exports are subject to government control, and Matrix Churchill had the appropriate government permissions, following a 1988 relaxation of export controls. Crucially, however, this relaxation had not been announced to parliament - indeed, when asked in parliament whether controls had been relaxed, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry replied incorrectly that they had not.^{[citation needed]}

Michael Brunson OBE (born 12 August 1940 in Norwich) is a British political journalist.

He was educated at Bedford School, a boys' independent school in Bedford, Bedfordshire, and read Theology at Queen's College, Oxford University. Michael Brunson began his broadcasting career at the BBC and later served as Washington correspondent and diplomatic editor of ITN. He is best known for serving as the political editor between 1986 to 2000 of ITN, and as an occasional ITN newscaster.

In 1971 Michael Brunson covered the war in Bangladesh and wrote a testimony about the death, starvation and suffering of refugees in West Bengal.

Since his retirement after 32 years at ITN in March 2000, he has regularly appeared as a political commentator on Sky News, GMTV and elsewhere. He was awarded the OBE in 2000 and lives in Letheringsett in Norfolk.

His autobiography, A Ringside Seat, was published in 2000.

John Vincent Hurt, CBE (born 22 January 1940) is an English actor and former voice actor. Among other honours, he has received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTA Awards, with the fourth being a Lifetime Achievement recognition.

Hurt is known for his leading roles as Joseph Merrick (billed as John Merrick) in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, and Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York. Recognizable for his distinctive rich voice, he has also enjoyed a successful voice acting career, starring in films such as Watership Down, The Lord of the Rings and Dogville, as well as BBC television series Merlin.

Hurt initially came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, and has since appeared in such popular motion pictures as: Alien, Midnight Express, Rob Roy, V for Vendetta, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the first, penultimate, and last Harry Potter films, the Hellboy film series, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hurt is one of England's best-known, most prolific and sought-after actors, and has had a versatile film career spanning six decades. He is also known for his many Shakespearean roles. His character's final scene in Alien is consistently named as one of the most memorable in cinematic history.

Kate Moss (born 16 January 1974) is an English model who is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on eating disorders, and her role in size zero fashion. In 2007, she came 2nd on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $9 million in one year.

Moss was born in Addiscombe, Croydon, London to Linda Rosina (Shepherd), a barmaid, and Peter Edward Moss, a travel agent. Kate has a younger brother named Nick and a half-sister named Lottie (Charlotte) and half-brother. Moss' parents divorced when she was 13. She attended Ridgeway Primary School and Riddlesdown Collegiate, but most commonly known as Riddlesdown High School, in Purley. She was not noted for her academic success but she did excel at sport.

Moss was discovered in 1988 at the age of 14 by Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management, at JFK Airport in New York City, after a holiday in the Bahamas. Moss's career began when Corinne Day shot black-and-white photographs of her, styled by Melanie Ward, for British magazine The Face when she was 16, in a photo shoot titled "The 3rd Summer of Love". Day discovered Kate Moss when she was a young and unknown model and described the pictures that she took of Moss as ‘dirty realism’ or ‘grunge’.Moss then went on to become the "anti-supermodel" of the 1990s^{[citation needed]} in contrast to the "supermodels" of the moment^{[citation needed]}, such as Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell, who were known^{[citation needed]} for their curvaceous and tall figures.

Sarah, Duchess of York (Sarah Margaret; née Ferguson; born 15 October 1959) is a British charity patron, spokesperson, writer, film producer, television personality and member of the British Royal Family. She is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, to whom she was married from 1986 until their divorce in 1996. She is often popularly referred to as "Fergie", a common nickname for people named Ferguson.

The Duchess is the younger daughter of Major Ronald Ferguson and Susan Barrantes (née Wright), both now deceased. Her children, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York, are respectively fifth and sixth in the line of succession to the thrones of 16 independent Commonwealth realms.

Sarah Margaret Ferguson is the second daughter of Major Ronald Ferguson and his first wife, Susan Mary Wright. Sarah's older sister is Jane Ferguson Luedecke, a public relations executive now living and working in Australia. After Sarah's parents divorced in 1974, her mother married polo player Hector Barrantesd and moved to Trenque Lauquen in the Argentine pampas. Sarah stayed at the 480-acre (1.9 km²) Dummer Down Farm at Dummer, Hampshire, her father's home since age 8. Major Ferguson remarried and had three more children.