Christine Keeler, played by Sophie Cookson, appears in court in an episode of the BBC’s The Trial of Christine Keeler

For more than half a century after the British government was rocked by the sex and spying scandal that became known as the Profumo affair, one big question remained unanswered.

What kind of man was Stephen Ward, the London osteopath who introduced John Profumo, the war minister, to a beautiful 19-year-old model named Christine Keeler?

For years Ward was portrayed as either a sleazy procurer of teenage girls for his society friends or a tragic fall guy who paid with his life for challenging one of Britain’s most powerful men.

Profumo was forced to resign from the government after he admitted lying to parliament about his affair with Keeler, who claimed she had slept with a Soviet naval attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov.

A recent discovery