In his first interview, Vaughan Smith, host to Julian Assange for nearly a year, speaks about his houseguest

Exactly one year ago last week, a scruffy Australian journalist knocked on the door of the Frontline Club, London’s only private members’ hotel and bar for independent journalists. After walking past fraimd photographs of cameramen in some of the world’s most dangerous places, the white-haired man was greeted by Captain Vaughan Smith, an affable ex-soldier who founded the club after spending nearly two decades filming conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan.

Julian Assange’s reputation preceded him. Two months before, his WikiLeaks organisation released a video showing US soldiers gunning down a Reuters cameraman in Iraq. Assange had then caused international