Richard Ralph was a career diplomat. He began his Whitehall service in 1969, after gaining an MSc in social science from Edinburgh University, with a position at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. During the 1970s and 1980s, his work took him to British embassies in Laos, Portugal, Zimbabwe and Washington.

He was appointed Ambassador to Latvia in 1993, before becoming Governor of the Falkland Islands in 1996, soon after Britain and Argentina signed an agreement on oil exploration around the islands. He served there till 1999.

His marriage of 30 years to Margaret, from which he has two grown-up children, James and Lucy, ended during his time in the Falklands.

As Ambassador to Romania from 2000 to 2003, Mr Ralph was involved in the country’s entry into Nato. In 2002 he became the first foreign ambassador to marry in the country when he married Jemma Marlor, 28 years his junior, whom he had met during his time in the Falklands.

Mr Ralph was drawn into the controversy surrounding the purchase by Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon, of Sidex, a Romanian steel plant. Mr Ralph submitted a letter in support of Mr Mittal’s bid to the Romanian Government, signed by Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. Weeks before, Mr Mittal had donated £125,000 to the Labour Party. Mr Ralph, who had held meetings with Mr Mittal before he made his bid, was present in July 2001 when Mr Mittal and the Romanian Prime Minister signed the contract.

Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, insisted that Mr Ralph had simply been doing as he was told. MPs later criticised the Foreign Office for putting Mr Ralph in the invidious position of promoting the interests of a company that had funded the Labour Party.

Mr Ralph became Ambassador to Peru until he left the diplomatic service in April 2006. He gained a close knowledge of the mining industry during his time there, and became chairman of Monterrico Mining, the company at the centre of the insider dealing case, in August 2006. The £93 million miner was taken over by the Chinese Zijin consortium.

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