Heather Brooke

Heather Rose Brooke is a British-American journalist best known for her work in the 2009 UK Parliamentary expenses scandal which resulted in the resignation of House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin. Brooke is also known as an author. Some of her books includes Your Right to Know, The Silent State, and The Revolution Will Be Digitised.

Brooke's Early Life & Education

Heather Rose Brooke was born on 15th December 1970 in Pennsylvania, the United States of America. She grew up in Seattle, Washington. 

Brooke has dual nationality American-British and has white ethnic descent. She went and graduated from Federal Way high School. 

She then enrolled at the University of Washington Department of Communication. Heather graduated in 1992 with a double major degree political science and journalism.

While still in college, she wrote for student newspaper, The Daily, and covered news stories and acting as the paper's sex columnist. 

Similarly, Heather earned her master's degree in English Literature from the University of Warwick.

Career Breakthrough 

She began working as an intern with The Spokesman-Review in Olympia, Washington to cover the state legislature. This eventually gave her early exposure to using public records requests to investigate the expenses of politicians. 

Following her graduation, she continued working with Spokesman-Review, however, it lacked the funds to keep her longer. 

After that, she became a crime reporter for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal where she reported on uncovered flaws in South Carolina's forensic crime lab and murder cases.

In 2004, Brooke began working on a book called Your Right to Know: How to Use the Freedom of Information Act and Other Access Laws (later renamed as Your Right to Know: A Citizens Guide to Freedom of Information)

explaining how to use the law. The book was revised and published in paperback and hardcover editions in October 2006.  

Her other books are The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy and The Revolution Will Be Digitised.

Bio Of other popular journalists: Chris Mortensen, Abby Hornacek, Connie Chung

United Kingdom Parliamentary Expenses Scandal

In October 2004, Brooke started to request details of MP's expenses via the House of Commons Freedom of Information Officer. She began requesting all 646 MP's expenses but the Commons claimed that would be too costly. 

In 2006, she reduced her request to 10 MPs i.e. the leaders of the parties and few ministers. Although she was refused for the third time, in July 2006, she made an appeal to the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas and her request was considered for a year. 

In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph obtained and disclosed unedited details of all MPs expenses including address details which revealed the practice of "Flipping" i.e. changing the registered main address for various tax and expense purposes. This act became a national scandal and led to several MP's resignations.

How Rich Is Heather Brooke?

Heather's main source of income is her journalism career. She also makes a decent amount of money from her book sales. 

Although she has not revealed her exact earnings, she surely owns thousands of dollars in her bank account. As per reports, her net worth is estimated at around $700 thousand as of early 2021.