He had worked for the retailer Millets, and was a scout leader in the 1960s. From 1973 he worked for
Public Services International, which moved its headquarters to
Feltham. He was a Hounslow Labour councillor for four years.
NUM Windsor was accused of damaging the image of the union by visiting
Libya during the strike and meeting
Colonel Gaddafi, at the time an enemy of the
United Kingdom. Windsor went to Libya, possibly in an attempt to put NUM funds beyond the reach of the government. Both
Mick McGahey, vice president of the NUM, and
Peter Heathfield, general secretary, denied knowing about this trip before it was revealed in the press. For reasons still not clear, Windsor met Colonel Gaddafi and film of the two men embracing was shown on British TV.
The Sunday Times' report on his visit was credited by some with substantially undermining public and parliamentary support for the miners. In 1990, Windsor was involved in media reports concerning
Arthur Scargill's misuse of union funds and receipt of funds from Libya, allegations which were substantially based on Windsor's evidence. The story was initially reported on the front page of the
Daily Mirror and in the
Central TV programme
The Cook Report. Gavin Lightman QC was requested to undertake an enquiry into the manner in which NUM funds and the £1 million donation by Russian miners were used during and after the miners' strike and found that Scargill had failed to account properly for substantial amounts of money including bank accounts opened in the name of Scargill's mother and Nell Myers (Scargill's PA). The report also found that Windsor had not repaid the £29,500 that he had admitted taking from the Miners' Solidarity Fund. Then
Mirror editor
Roy Greenslade later wrote an article apologising to Scargill for the false claim that he had used Libyan money to pay off his mortgage and for relying on Windsor as a source, given that Windsor had still not repaid the £29,500 as of 2002, when the
Court of Cassation in France had ordered that he repay the money. Some of his actions during and after the strike led to accusations that he was an agent of
MI5. The allegations were raised by George Galloway in Parliament in 1993 and 1994, but could not be challenged outside it due to
parliamentary privilege. After the allegation was repeated in a 21 May 2000 newspaper article in the
Sunday Express by
Rupert Allason, Windsor in 2003 won a
libel action against the
Express and its then editor,
Rosie Boycott. The head of the MI5 branch responsible for 'monitoring' unions and strike activity at the time of the strike, Dame
Stella Rimington, gave an unusual denial in 2001, saying that Windsor was "never an agent in any sense of the word that you can possibly imagine", and, in breach of normal government protocol,
John Major, the Prime Minister, made an official statement that Roger Windsor was never involved with the government. Windsor was portrayed as Terry Winters in David Peace's novel
GB84. ==Personal life==