Hundreds gather to mourn Lord Longford

Former prisoners and a disgraced Tory MP joined hundreds of mourners on Friday to say farewell to Lord Longford, the Labour peer who spent his life fighting for society's outcasts.

Westminster Cathedral was overflowing and a crowd gathered outside while Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, delivered his requiem mass.

He praised Lord Longford as a man who upheld values different to those of mainstream society, with religious beliefs which meant he was unconcerned by criticism.

The peer, who died aged 95 last week, became notorious by campaigning for parole for the Moors murderer Myra Hindley and for championing the causes of other reviled prisoners. But his penal reform work followed a long career in business and politics most notable for a vociferous anti-pornography campaign in the 1970s.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said Lord Longford, who converted to Catholicism as an Oxford University student, was never worried by ridicule because "he was concerned with another kingdom". He chose the Beatitudes as a reading because they summed up the peer as one of "those who hunger for what is right".

He said: "There are some who think religion is a refuge from risk, but it never should be and it wasn't for Frank. In many ways he was a controversial figure and at times was mocked and scorned.

"So when Frank spoke out against abortion or against pornography, or spoke up for penal reform and visited the forgotten ones in prison, he was only living out the injunctions of the Kingdom of God.

"If the tributes that have been paid to him have emphasised the more colourful and eccentric side of his life, rather than his career in politics and publishing and banking, who is to say they are wrong? For the world needs to hear and see a witness to the values that are different from those espoused by our society."

Friends and supporters of all political persuasions attended the service in central London with Lord Longford's widow Elizabeth, their seven children and most of their 26 grandchildren. His daughter, Lady Antonia Fraser and her husband, the playwright Harold Pinter, were among the mourners.

One former prisoner in attendance was Martin O'Brien, who met Lord Longford twice after serving two weeks in jail. "I recognised him in a restaurant, went up to him and thanked him for his work. Prison frightened me and people inside have a great deal of respect for him because he treats them like human beings," he said.

Another mourner, Marigold Johnson, stayed in the room next to Lady Antonia at Oxford University and first met the peer when he mistakenly knocked on her door. They remained friends for 50 years and she worked with him on the Pornography Report in 1972. "He was another father in my life. There are so many stories about his kindness and good humour it's difficult to know where to start," she said.