He was brought up in Darlington, County Durham, attending Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, and then studied at St Peter's College, Oxford.
[6] He twice stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party, at Blackpool South in 1966 and at Richmond (Yorks) in February 1974.
[7] Pearce was criticised for writing an article in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, at a time when a number of victims' funerals were taking place.
In a Sunday Times article on 23 April 1989 he wrote the following: "For the second time in half a decade a large body of Liverpool supporters has killed people ...the shrine in the Anfield goalmouth, the cursing of the police, all the theatricals, come sweetly to a city which is already the world capital of self-pity.
[8] Professor Phil Scraton described Pearce's comments as amongst the "most bigoted and factually inaccurate" published in the wake of the disaster.
The match commander, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, was found to have acted with gross negligence and failed in his duty of care to the victims.
[14] His Tribune obituary described this example of his work, "... his trenchant attitude backfired spectacularly when he wrote an article wrongly blaming Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough disaster.