[1] In 1963, Foster, then a freelance reporter for the Daily Sketch, and fellow reporter Brendan Mulholland, of the Daily Mail, known as the 'Silent Journalists', were sentenced to prison terms for refusing to reveal their sources to the Vassall Tribunal.
[3] While at the Herald, he also wrote Dover Front (1941),[4] published by Searchlight Books, the short-lived imprint of Secker & Warburg co-ordinated by T. R. Fyvel and George Orwell.
[5] After the war, Foster joined the News Chronicle, covering notorious criminal cases such as those of the acid bath murderer John George Haigh (1949), the serial killer John Christie and the Derek Bentley case (1952).
[6] In 1963, after covering the Vassall spy trial as a freelance reporter for the Sketch,[7] Foster, then 58,[1] was jailed for 3 months[8] for refusing to disclose his source,[9][10] and subsequently released after 61 days.
[12][8] Foster then worked at the London office of the Yorkshire Evening Post before retiring.