...for December 2002

December 30, 2002 -

• Popular Prince William 'looks like Diana'
  
  Royalist and former Tory MP Norman St John Stevas says he is not surprised Prince William was our viewers' choice of royal to be on the throne in 2013.
  He says: "Prince William is popular because he is young and intelligent and looks like Princess Diana.
  
  "Prince Charles is taken for granted. Most people think he should succeed the Queen. The Teletext poll shows people's views for further ahead."
  
  More than a third of Teletext voters backed Britain being a republic in 2013 but Lord St John Stevas says there is no groundswell of support for the removal of the monarchy.
  
  He tells us: "Britain has had a republican tradition from the 19th century onwards.
  
  "The success of the Queen's Jubilee year has left support for the monarchy as strong as ever."
  
  Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn says the result of the Teletext poll reflects current public opinion.
  
  "I think it's a generally held view that when the Queen comes to the end of her reign we should have an elected head of state," he says.
  
  "The current Royals aren't the issue, whatever their problems. We should put our views on them aside and look at what kind of democracy we want."
  
  The scandals which emerged after the collapse of the Paul Burrell trial have damaged the reputation of the monarchy, says Harold Brooks-Baker.
  
  Mr Brooks-Baker, of gentry guide Burke's Peerage, tells us: "We monitor the polls conducted and there has been a change in recent months.
  
  "Since the Burrell case, the interest in the republican movement has been growing rather fast."
  
  Prince Charles has a long way to go to convince people he will make a fitting king, says Jon Temple of anti-monarchy group Republic.
  
  Jon tells us: "Charles has tried to run a kind of election campaign to be more popular but it hasn't really worked.
  
  "As William gets older, Charles will be even less popular. The future of the monarchy depends on whether William actually wants the throne."
  
  

December 25, 2002 -

• US fan makes a dash for William
  
  As the Royal Family left their Christmas Day church service at Sandringham, a female fan dashed forward and hugged Prince William, much to the surprise of his bodyguards.
  
  Mother-of-three Marlene Ponce, 42, ducked under a rope keeping back crowds outside the church. Mrs Ponce, who was born in the Philippines but lives in Ruby, South Carolina, US, hugged the prince and handed him a block of chocolate with a card saying "We love you" before being led back behind the rope by royal protection officers.
  
  Prince William smiled and resumed his walk back to nearby Sandringham house. He had attended the service at St Mary Magdalene church with the Queen and other Royals.
  
  Mrs Ponce, who works at the United States Air Force base at Lakenheath, Suffolk, as a family support co-ordinator, wept with emotion as she told reporters why she had decided to dash out of the crowd.
  
  "We love the whole Royal Family and I am a big fan of Diana," said Mrs Ponce.
  
  "We are going back to the States in October and I thought this may be my last chance to speak to William and I told my husband I just wanted to do this.
  
  "When I saw William come out of the church not too far away from where I was standing I just said to myself 'go for it girl'.
  
  "I don't think he was embarrassed. I think he enjoyed it. I am so excited. It's made my Christmas. It was such a thrill."
  
  Earlier, as Queen Elizabeth arrived at the church, she did not use a walking stick despite suffering from a strained right knee. However, she did appear to have a slight limp and used a handrail as she walked up the set of seven stone steps into the church. The Queen injured her leg during a private visit to Newmarket, Suffolk, on Friday. She has since been walking "with the occasional use of a stick", according to Buckingham Palace.
  
  The members of the Royal Family at the church were Prince Harry, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Wessex, the Duke of York and his daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie; the Princess Royal's husband, Commodore Tim Laurence, and her children, Peter and Zara Phillips. Also there were Viscount and Viscountess Linley, and Lady Sarah Chatto and her husband Daniel.
  
  The knee injury came at the end of an eventful and at times deeply sad year for the Queen, who is 76. Television viewers have been shown an unprecedented preview of the Queen's Christmas Broadcast, in which she summed up the past 12 months as "about as full a year as I can remember".
  
  "In recognition of what has been a momentous and roller-coaster year, it has been decided to trail the broadcast by releasing the theme of the program," a Palace spokeswoman said.
  
  In her broadcast, at 3pm, Queen Elizabeth will focus on the sadness, as well as the joy, of 2002, reflecting on the deaths of her mother and her sister, Princess Margaret. She will also acknowledge the overwhelming public support she received during her Jubilee, marking 50 years on the throne.
  
  In the broadcast, the Queen wears a brooch she gave to the Queen Mother for her 100th birthday. The hand-painted rock crystal piece is set on 100 diamonds.
  
  

December 24, 2002 -

• Devastated princes attend funeral of friend killed in crash
  
  Prince William and Prince Harry joined dozens of old school friends yesterday for the funeral of a classmate killed in a car crash.
  
  Henry van Straubenzee, 18, died last week when the car in which he was travelling hit a tree. He was the distant cousin of the late Sir William van Straubenzee, a Tory MP from 1959 to 1987.
  
  The teenager was one of Prince Harry's closest friends and they had been pupils together at Ludgrove School. Prince William also attended the school. Both princes were reported to be "devastated" at the news of his death which happened in front of the gates of the £7,500-a-year prep school in Wokingham, Berks.
  
  Another of their friends, Frederick Palmer, the driver of the car, was still in intensive care last night. His condition was described as "stable and continuing to improve".
  
  Hundreds of mourners packed the village church at Kimpton, Herts, where Henry lived with his parents, Alexander and Claire van Straubenzee.
  
  The princes were ushered into the church after the other 300 mourners had already gone in. Seats had been reserved for them with the main group of mourners.
  
  Both brothers had requested that security at the church be as low-key as possible and they listened intently as the Rev Ken Buckler led prayers.
  
  Their former headmaster, Gerald Barber, who is still head of Ludgrove School, spoke of Henry's "great sense of humour and fun spirit". Mr Barber also told how Henry had been working at the school during his gap year and was running its football team. The princes left immediately after the service.
  
  

December 23, 2002 -

• DIANA'S LOST £1/2 MILLION
  
  Princes' William and Harry have lost nearly £500,000 of their mother's legacy on the stock market. Royal stockbrokers gambled with £1.4million Diana left her sons to give to good causes. Cazenove and Co were hired to look after the money but the decision to put the money in a portfolio of UK investments turned into disaster.
  
  The Mirror has obtained records showing the princes suffered a joint loss of £224,036 in one year and £133,936 the year before.
  
  If the cash was still invested on the volatile stockmarket over the last year they will have lost again, making a total of nearly £500,000 over three years. The drop in market value of their shares means the princes started with £724,481 each - but it has been reduced to just £545,495. The money came from a secret fund set up by Princess Diana in 1981 and financed by donations from organisations and companies she represented or visited.
  
  After her death the Princess of Wales Charities Trust was split between her sons so they could carry on good works when they left school. The Broad Cairn Foundation charitable trust was set up for William, now 20, and the Glen Beg Foundation for Harry, 18.
  
  Both are named after hills on the Balmoral estate.
  
  Cazenove were hired by two boards of trustees looking after the foundations until the boys were old enough to take over as patrons.
  
  William's charity trustees include the Duke of Westminster, one of Britain's wealthiest men, and Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles's new private secretary.
  The trustees of Harry's are family friends, landowner Hugh van Cutsum, and his godfather, Old Etonian farmer Gerald Ward.
  
  Prince Charles's solicitor Fiona Shackleton, the only trustee to sit on both boards, will help advise the boys on how to use the cash. However William has made his first donations exactly as his mother would have wished.
  
  Among those to benefit are charities helping children with diabetes, youngsters who are homeless or in poverty and victims of Parkinson's Disease.
  
  In common with Prince Charles and other members of the Royal Family, who give thousands of pounds each year through charitable trusts, William has not made any public announcement about his donations.
  
  His generosity came to light in the financial accounts which each foundation has to supply to the Charity Commission.
  
  Latest records for the Broad Cairn Foundation show £600 was split equally between the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Parkinson's Disease Society and the Haven Trust, which supports children in poverty or homeless in the Gloucestershire area.
  
  Neither boy is likely to start handing out money properly until they leave full time education. But eventually they are expected to donate £50,000 a year from the foundations.
  
  St James's Palace said last night: "We consider this to be a private matter and have no comment to make."
  
  Cazenove said it was their policy not to discuss clients' business.
  
  

December 19, 2002 -

• Prince William poison plot woman found insane
  
  An American woman who planned to send a bottle of cyanide laced lemonade to Prince William has been found innocent by reason of insanity. Tashala Hayman, 22, was accused of mailing poisoned bottles to Senator Edward Kennedy. She will be sent to a federal psychiatric hospital until she is deemed no longer a threat to herself or to others, said US Attorney Bill Mercer.
  
  Prosecutors said Hayman, of Vaughn, Montana, posted two bottles to Senator Kennedy in August, and prepared another package with a tainted lemonade to send to Prince William at St Andrews University. Tests found cyanide in the bottles, in quantities exceeding levels needed to kill someone, according to court documents.
  
  Hayman was arrested after police said she bought a pistol with a stolen debit card number. They said they found the package to Prince William and printouts of Senator Hillary Clinton's address in her mobile home. Mercer said earlier it was unclear why she targeted Kennedy, Prince William or Mrs Clinton. In a hearing in Great Falls, Montana, Judge Sam Haddon found that Hayman was "legally insane" when the offences occurred, suffering from symptoms of schizophrenia.
  
  

December 17, 2002 -

• Princes' Devestated After Classmate Dies in Car Crash
  
  Prince Harry and his brother William are distraught after the death of their friend Henry van Straubenzee in a car crash. The 18-year-old was travelling as a passenger in the car when it hit a tree outside Ludgrove School in Wokingham, Berkshire.
  
  Harry and Henry had been classmates at the school and a spokesman for St James's Palace said that both Harry and his brother were "very, very upset."
  
  "They (the van Straubenzees) are well-known in royal circles," said one source close to the family. "The families have been friends for years."
  
  Henry, who was working as a junior master at Ludgrove, intended to spend some time teaching English in Uganda before going to college at Newcastle University. He is survived by parents Alexander and Claire and his two brothers, Thomas, 20, and Charlie, 14. "He had a fantastic sense of humour," said his father. "That was his biggest attribute. Everyone will miss that."
  
  The 19-year-old driver of the car is still in hospital in critical condition. Police are appealing for witnesses to the accident, though no other vehicle is thought to have been involved.
  
  

December 16, 2002 -

• WILLIAM'S GAME GIRLS
  15 friends sharing just six bedrooms. So who were the gorgeous girls who joined the Prince's shooting party weekend?
  
  To the untutored eye the timing must have seemed unfortunate, to say the least. On the very weekend that Prince Charles was at Sandringham hosting a sedate shooting party, his son was welcoming a group of student friends to Wood Farm, just a mile away.
  
  While Charles and his eight friends had the run of the 300-plus rooms of the great Edwardian mansion, Prince William and his 15 companions were making do with the farmhouse's six bedrooms.
  
  If nothing else, the sleeping arrangements of the heir to the throne and the next in line were compelling proof that, in the Royal Family, precedence counts for everything. And as we shall see, there could not have been a greater contrast in the character of the guests each prince invited. But even as the guns of the rival groups separately blazed away, a plan was swinging into action to ensure that for all the inconvenience of clashing diaries, no princely pleasures were denied.
  
  Charles arranged for his staff to provide the catering for William's party, and throughout the weekend a discreet royal takeaway service brought the best of the Sandringham kitchens to his son's dining table. (It was certainly different from the regular curries which have become a feature of William's university diet.) And each day the Prince of Wales telephoned his son to check all was well. Such contact was reassuring. Both princes have been scarred by the events of the past six weeks, with the collapse of the trials against butlers Harold Brown and Paul Burrell.
  
  For Charles, there have been the damaging gay rape allegations involving a senior member of his staff and the scandal over the disposal of unwanted royal gifts.
  
  For William, the episode has been tinged with sadness because of the constant references to his late mother, and it has only increased his suspicions about many of the people around him.
  
  Just the other day, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens met the Prince of Wales's private secretary Sir Michael Peat, because of concerns that William and Prince Harry no longer trust their police protection officers as they once did.
  
  The blame for this is being directed squarely at Ken Wharfe, Princess Diana's former bodyguard, who wrote a lurid account of his time with the boys' mother - a memoir that both found offensive and upsetting.
  
  It is the reason William guards his privacy with a near obsessive zeal. In public, even among friends, he is scrupulous about his behaviour, as he was at the Beaufort Hunt ball earlier this month. OF COURSE, there was the usual gaggle of pretty girls surrounding him, but he drank moderately and there were none of the high spirits he might have indulged in on earlier occasions.
  
  And even when his guard does slip - as it did recently at a black tie ball at St Andrews University when he was seen in a passionate embrace with a pretty girl - he is cautious.
  
  The occasion was a sports club party for 350
  ticket-only guests held at the St Andrews Sea Life Centre. According to other undergraduates, such behaviour by the student prince is rare.
  
  'There are always girls around him, but you don't see him exhibiting any favours towards anyone,' says one fellow student.
  
  Among the attractions in the aquarium that night were live bands, Romeo the seal and a three-stone conger eel called William, but most eyes were on the Prince and his dark-haired female companion.
  
  William, say university friends, had brought the girl with him from Gloucestershire and she accompanied him to a house party and then on to the ball.
  
  And this time, he did enter into the spirit of the occasion, becoming less and less steady on his feet until retreating to a seat in a distant corner, where he sipped whisky and cola and was joined by the mystery girl.
  
  Yet despite his promise to stay put at St Andrews after last year's 'wobble' when there were doubts that he would last the course, William continues to lead a social life far away from the Scottish university.
  
  This winter term it has largely been centred on hunting and shooting, usually around Highgrove.
  
  But he also likes to head for Balmoral, where the Queen has provided him with his own bolthole, self in his VW Golf. For the friends who join him on such visits, there is a glimpse of the Prince as a private man, not as the Queen's grandson.
  
  How happy Diana would have been that her son refers to himself as 'Will Wales' among his friends.
  
  More important, it is how he wants them to refer to him.
  
  It may seem absurd, but 22 years ago when Diana was first being courted by Prince Charles and, indeed, right up to their engagement, she had to call him Sir. And, of course, it was against this background of discomfort with protocol that William eschewed the HRH style that was his when he turned 18.
  
  It has been said he won't adopt the Royal Highness title until he has graduated, but no one knows for sure if he will, even then. Other royal trappings have been ignored, too. By the time Prince Charles was 21, he had an equerry-cum-private secretary, a valet and a driver.
  
  William, six months short of that landmark age, has chosen to have none of these, although I understand that, from time to time, Charles's under-valets Clive Hobbs and John Allen do 'help out', while senior valet Lee Dobson is said to keep an eye on William's clothes.
  
  Among Prince Charles's staff, there is unease that William has deliberately deprived himself of any backup. As one told me yesterday: 'The Prince of Wales went from having nanny Mabel Anderson, to a nursery footman, to his former valet Stephen Barry.
  
  'William gave up his nanny when his mother died and hasn't had anyone else in that department to look after him since.' BUT DOES this really matter?
  
  After all, William has no plans to have his own home just yet. Indeed, a suite of rooms is being prepared for him at Clarence House, the Queen Mother's former home, which Prince Charles has taken over.
  
  According to the aide, William needs to acquire one or two staff to confide in. 'At the moment, if he wants to arrange a girlfriend to stay over, he has to do it through his police protection officers, and since he is so suspicious of the police it must be difficult.' Ex-soldier turned businessman Mark Dyer, who organised William's gap year travels two years ago, still provides part-time help, however.
  
  For last week's shooting party, William entrusted the arrangements to Helen Asprey, recruited earlier this year as his personal assistant.
  
  Today we can reveal that his guests included six girls, among them three fellow students from St Andrews. And prominent among those was the Hon.
  
  Virginia Fraser, 19, who lives in the same street of Victorian terraces as William during term time.
  
  The only daughter of Lloyds underwriter Lord Strathalmond, Ginny Fraser was educated at Downe House, the leading Roman Catholic boarding school in Thatcham, Berkshire, whose former pupils include Princess Michael of Kent's daughter, Lady Gabriella Windsor.
  
  Speaking at the family home at Elstead, near Farnham, Surrey, this week, Lady Strathalmond confirmed that her daughter and the Prince were friends.
  
  'They are both students at St Andrews and they are friends, but there is really nothing more to say,' she said.
  
  'I don't know what they get up to at their parties or whatever, but I'm sure he must have lots of friends at St Andrews. I don't know how long they have known each other, but I don't think she knew him before she went there.
  
  'She has not spoken about him in the past.' Other shooting party guests included Olivia Bleasdale, 19-year old daughter of a couple who met when both were in the Army. Her father, Lieut Col Jeremy Bleasdale, a Royal Artillery officer, is currently serving with the British military mission in Kuwait.
  
  Olivia was educated at the exclusive Westonbirt School, near the Prince's Highgrove home at Tetbury, Glos, and her paternal grandfather, Alfred, was a government minister in the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman.
  
  Both girls were among William's companions at a university charity fashion show last April when his stunning flatmate Kate Middleton - who was also at Sandringham - made a daring catwalk appearance. KATE, the 19-year old daughter of a Berkshire company director, wore a transparent lace dress revealing her underwear. She is the only girl among the four students who share William's GBP 400a-week flat in St Andrews.
  
  The girls join a select band of close friends of the Prince, which still includes Natalie Hicks-Lobbecke, a blonde three years his senior and whom he calls Nats.
  
  How very different from the party his father was hosting with Camilla Parker Bowles a mile away across the Norfolk estate. Charles's guests included the chain-smoking Queen of Denmark, who, because of a trapped sciatic nerve in her back, stayed only one day.
  
  Fellow guests included millionaire landowner and art collector Sir Nicholas Bacon - England's premier baronet - and his wife Susan.
  
  A godson of the Queen and former Page of Honour, Sir Nicholas owns 14,000 Norfolk acres and is a former chairman of the British Sugar Corporation.
  
  They were joined by Lord and Lady Cavendish, a former Tory energy minister and owner of the Tuscan estate where Charles and Camilla went on holiday in September.
  
  A cousin of the Duke of Devonshire, Richard Cavendish lives at Holker Hall, in Cumbria.
  
  Other guests included Charles's old friend and Tory MP Nicholas Soames and Jolyon Connell, owner of The Week magazine. With two such disparate groups of companions for the weekend, it is probably as well that Charles and William's friends did not meet.
  
  

December 16, 2002 -

• SHARON OSBOURNE HAS REVEALED HOW SHE GROPED PRINCE WILLIAM'S BUM
  
  OZZY Osbourne's wife Sharon has revealed how she groped Prince William's bum and squeezed Camilla Parker Bowles' boobs at the Golden
  Jubilee pop concert.
  
  Sharon, 53, told Camilla: "You've got gorgeous old tits."
  
  She then nipped Prince William's bum before doing the same to his brother Harry and Prince Charles.
  
  

December 16, 2002 -

• Britain's always popular Prince William has been pipped to the post as Europe's favourite young royal by Charlotte Casiraghi of Monaco in hellomagazine.com's latest poll.
  
  Wills and the Mediterranean beauty were running neck-and-neck in the final furlong, when a last-minute dash for Charlotte left Britain's most eligible young man behind. She beat Wills by just 167 votes, with 4,592 to his 4,425.
  
  The elder daughter of Monaco's Princess Caroline, 16-year-old Charlotte has been closely guarded from the press by her mother. But these days the blossoming brunette, who does not carry the title of princess, is turning heads everywhere she goes.
  
  She and William were far and away our readers' favourites, leaving other popular and attractive young contenders - including both their siblings - in the shade.
  
  Burgeoning heart-throbs Prince Harry and Andrea Casiraghi limped home with 1,767 and 1,412 votes respectively. While in a disappointing result for the Swedes, Crown Princess Victoria only garnered 1,273 votes and her sister Princess Madeleine finished last with 1,086.
  
  

December 16, 2002 -

• Palace fooled into denying rumour on Harry's parentage
  
  A BOGUS plot to steal a lock of Prince Harry’s hair led St James’s Palace to make public false rumours that the Prince of Wales is not his father.
  The palace’s bungling has also left it facing the threat of legal action from a tabloid newspaper editor wrongly accused of mounting a sting operation against the Prince.
  
  The bizarre story began last week when St James’s Palace received a letter from a firm of solicitors alleging that a tabloid newspaper was planning to steal the young Prince’s hair to try to establish from DNA tests whether James Hewitt, who had a long relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales, was Prince Harry’s father.
  
  Mr Hewitt, who was not in Britain in the 12 months before Prince Harry was born, has scoffed at the suggestion he is his father. But Sir Michael Peat, private secretary to the Prince of Wales, took seriously the letter, which accused the News of the World of hiring a teenage girl to use in a “honey trap” to get the Prince’s hair.
  
  Sir Michael, who began work for Prince Charles in September, first called in the police. Then, bypassing media advisers and the Press Complaints Commission, which has full access to newspaper editors, he called Rebekah Wade, Editor of the News of the World, and effectively pronounced her guilty as charged in the solicitor’s letter. In a heated conversation he warned Ms Wade that he would be writing to her, on behalf of the Prince of Wales, to register the disappointment of the palace at her conduct. Ms Wade told Sir Michael that if he put anything in writing it would leak, ensuring that the rumours about Prince Harry and Mr Hewitt would enter the public domain.
  
  Sir Michael sent the letter and the rumours were splashed over the Sunday newspapers. The News of the World’s lawyers have studied the letter from Sir Michael, who is conducting the palace investigation into the sale of royal gifts, and say legal action is an option. Ms Wade is to write to the Prince of Wales to complain about Sir Michael’s behaviour and to blame the palace for making the story about Prince Harry public. The first hints of a plot involving DNA and Prince Harry’s hair were conveyed to St James’s Palace in the summer. The suggestion was that the sting would be conducted by a foreign publication, but the palace did not take it seriously.
  
  Any British newspaper involved in any such operation would be in breach of every privacy clause in Press Complaints Commission code of practice. All British papers have also agreed not to invade the Princes’ privacy while they are in full-time education.
  
  St James’s Palace declined to comment yesterday and Ms Wade was not available for comment. Stuart Kuttner, managing editor of the News of the World, said: “The allegation that we would attempt to obtain a sample of Prince Harry’s hair is preposterous. We did not do this, never attempted to do this, and it has never crossed our minds to do so.
  
  “If this is the approach Sir Michael Peat is adopting in his investigation into sleaze at the palace we can only assume he will find everyone guilty, regardless of any evidence. The whole notion is bonkers.”
  
  It emerged yesterday that Mr Hewitt had been set up by the News of the World, which sent a reporter posing as the middleman for a Swiss businessman to buy 64 intimate letters from the Princess. He was reported to have asked £10 million for them.
  
  Michael Coleman, his solicitor, said: “The letters belong to James Hewitt, he is free to sell them if he wants to.” Buckingham Palace and St James’s Palace declined to comment.
  
  Mr Hewitt, 44, once said he would “never dream” of selling the hand-written love letters. Even if they letters are sold they could never be published as the copyright is owned by the Spencer family, who would never give permission.
  
  

December 15, 2002 -

• Prince Harry in hair-raising mystery
  
  Prince Harry, the teenage son of the late Princess Diana, has been warned of a plot to steal some of his hair in a bid to obtain a sample of his DNA genetic makeup, a Sunday newspaper has reported. The Sunday Times said police had been alerted after the private secretary of Prince Charles, Harry's father and the heir to the throne, received a letter from a former police officer's lawyer detailing the plans.
  
  Neither the police nor Prince Charles's staff would comment on the matter. Scientists can carry out DNA tests on minute samples of hair, skin or saliva to establish a blood relationship between two individuals. Harry, 18 and famous for his unruly shock of red hair, is the younger of Diana's two sons with her former husband Charles. He has become as much of a heart-throb with teenage girls as his blond older brother Prince William.
  
  Diana, who died in a 1997 Paris car crash, and Charles divorced after revelations of adultery on both sides -- he with Camilla Parker Bowles and she with former British army officer James Hewitt. In September, Hewitt categorically denied in a newspaper interview that he was Harry's real father in a bid to dispel long-standing rumours.
  
  "I have been aware for a while that the issue of Harry's paternity has been a major talking point. There really is no possibility whatsoever that I am Harry's father," he told the Sunday Mirror, adding that his affair with Diana had begun when Harry was a toddler.
  
  The Sunday Times, citing unnamed sources close to St James's Palace, Prince Charles's London residence, said the letter claimed that a media organisation had hired a private detective to obtain some of Harry's hair. One part of the plan was to engineer an encounter between Harry, who is still at school at Eton, and an attractive young woman, who would pluck some hair from his head, the paper said.
  
  The hair-snatching plot is the latest in a series of bizarre stories about the royal family to make headlines in recent weeks. The collapse of the theft trial of Diana's former butler Paul Burrell led to a flood of embarrassing allegations that have tarnished Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee year. During the trial, the court was told that Diana kept Hewitt's signet ring in a locked box in her sitting room and that she had taped allegations of gay rape involving two royal servants.
  
  

December 15, 2002 -

• WILLIAM'S BODYGUARD STRIPPED OF GUN LICENCE
  
  AN ARMED policeman trusted with guarding Prince William has been stripped of his gun licence after he was accused of beating up his wife. Chiefs dropped Alan Meldrum from the protection squad and removed his personal gun permits after police were called to his home by his terrified wife. The firearms enthusiast was charged with beating her during a stormy split - although the case never went to court. Constable Meldrum is one of a group of elite armed officers from Fife police selected to guard the Prince during his four- year history of art course at St Andrews.
  
  Meldrum, 37, also worked at Camp Zeist in Holland, guarding the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al- Megrahi. But after the break-up of his marriage to Jacqueline - during which he was charged by police colleagues with assault and breach of the peace - he was removed from the squad and his firearms and shotgun licences were taken from him. Our picture of burly Meldrum shows him guarding the High Court in Dunfermline during a major drugs smuggling trial in 1996. He later worked as a special minder, spending 18 months on a Royal Protection team guarding Prince William. Though the Prince has his own personal bodyguard from Scotland Yard's Royalty and Diplomatic Protection unit, police in Fife also provide armed back-up.
  
  Jacqueline divorced the gun cop in September, citing his "unreasonable behaviour". She was given custody of their three children, aged 12, 10 and eight, as well as ownership of the family home in Burntisland, Fife, as part of the settlement. During the separation she obtained a court order against her husband, preventing him from harassing her and putting her in a state of fear and alarm. PC Meldrum, of Methil, Fife, is alleged to have threatened Jacqueline on several occasions at their home during and after the split. Meldrum, who takes part in field sports and also bred gun dogs, was also accused of failing to look after his personal firearms properly by leaving them in the family home after he left. This charge also contributed to him losing his right to use firearms, both personally and professionally.
  
  A Fife police spokesman said yesterday: "We can confirm PC Meldrum's shotgun and firearms certificates were revoked earlier this year.
  
  "A police report was submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in Kirkcaldy in relation to incidents at his home address." Fife police say the charges against Meldrum were later dropped by the Fiscal.
  
  A spokeswoman for the Crown Office added: "A 37-year-old Burntisland man was reported to the Procurator Fiscal at Kirkcaldy in connection with an allegation of assault and breach of the peace in January 2002. After careful consideration, the Procurator Fiscal decided to take no further proceedings."
  
  The former gun cop is now on sick leave from the police. Yesterday Jacqueline, who works for a publisher, declined to comment on her relationship with her former husband, who she married in 1987. Meldrum left his wife shortly after he was assigned to Camp Zeist. A senior Scots firearms expert said the action taken by the police against Meldrum was normal in the circumstances.
  
  He added: "Police firearms holders must submit to a stringent medical and psychological tests once a year.
  
  "Normally marriage break-ups would automatically result in the loss of a police firearms licence.
  
  "Pending criminal charges and failure to look after weapons properly will also result in the loss of a firearms licence.
  
  "Chief Constables have absolute authority in deciding who should hold a firearms licence.
  
  "That authority has become even greater since the Dunblane tragedy."
  
  Meldrum can appeal against the decision by Chief Constable Peter Wilson to revoke his gun licence by seeking a judicial review at the Court of Session. But yesterday Meldrum said he did not intend challenging the decision by the Chief Constable.
  
  He added: "I am not going to any judicial review. I am employed by Fife Constabulary, I am quite happy with Fife Constabulary and have no grievance with them."
  
  In the last few months police have stepped up security at St Andrews, introducing bag searches in the library and screening with a metal detector.
  
  Prince William stays with three friends in a flat in the town. The armed police guarding the Royals have hit the headlines in recent months. In August, elite police guarding Prince Charles arrived in Scotland without the key to their gun box. The six-strong Royal Protection unit left the keys on a desk in their London base before travelling to the Palace of Holyrood House, Edinburgh, where the prince was staying during a visit to Scotland. The blunder was only discovered when the Metropolitan officers went to open the box - containing Glock 9mm automatics, other handguns and rifles - in Holyrood. It was the fourth firearms blunder involving the Royals' armed protection officers in just two years. A policeman guarding the Queen accidentally fired his gun inside Buckingham Palace last year. In another incident, another officer, who was part of the team protecting Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, shot a fellow officer in the arm during a training exercise. And two years ago, royal guard PC Michael Slade fired two bullets on the Royal Train - right next to the compartment where the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were sleeping. One bullet hit a coffee table as the officer took off his holster. The other went through the floor of the train, which was stationary in the Welsh countryside, as he tried to make the weapon safe.
  
  

December 12, 2002 -

• Prince William Drive runs into a dead end with St Andrews residents
  
  THE residents of St Andrews threw a protective shield around Prince William, their most famous student, yesterday as plans to name a new development and care village after him were dismissed as exploitative. Central Scotland Healthcare, the company behind the complex, were keen to use the royal name to celebrate his decision to study at the country's oldest university, where he began a history of art course last year.
  
  However, civic and community council leaders criticised the idea of "Prince William Drive" as "self-serving" and "totally unsuitable".
  
  Great efforts have been made over the last 16 months to safeguard the young prince's privacy at the university where the royal family has invested millions of pounds on security. Students are understood to have been expressly forbidden by Dr Brian Lang, the new principal, to speak about the prince, especially to the press. Pete Lindsay, secretary of St Andrews Community Council, said yesterday that it had been consulted by Fife Council over the proposal to use Prince William's name for the development . However, he said the company's suggestion of a permanent reminder of his stay in the town had been unanimously turned down.
  
  He continued: "This is naked exploitation of an individual. It is shocking that anyone should have suggested it in the first place."
  
  The idea was also rejected by Bill Brooks, local Fife councillor, who added: "I feel that such self-serving applications of this nature should quite simply not be countenanced."
  
  Bill Sangster, a local businessman, said that if the area was named after Prince William, street signs would be regarded as "trophies" and would start to disappear, costing the local authority extra money. The idea also failed to find favour with Gordon Christie, a local historian.
  
  He said: "I wouldn't advise that at all. We have Windsor Gardens in St Andrews after the House of Windsor but I can't say I am surprised that the community council turned down this request."
  
  Robert Sinclair, president of the Saint Andrew Society of St Andrews, added: "This is a ridiculous suggestion. The prince is a just a student here in St Andrews. We should respect his privacy because that is what he and his father want during his time in the town."
  
  Mr Sinclair said that the site of the development was adjacent to Puddock's Brae, once a popular sledging area in the town.
  
  He added: "Why don't the developers call it Puddock's Brae Home."
  
  Nick Wood, project manager with Central Scotland Healthcare, said he was shocked by the local reaction to the suggestion.
  
  He added: "I am amazed that it has caused such a storm. It was considered to be topical. However, we do need an address for this new development and we would be delighted if the community council can come up with a suitable alternative."
  
  Prince William's presence at the university has hugely enhanced its popularity. In the year in which he applied, there were almost 10,000 applications for just 1000 first year places.
  
  

December 8, 2002 -

• REAL BLAST FOR HARRY AND WILLS
  PRINCES William and Harry showed off their shooting skills to a group of beautiful girls yesterday. The brothers are hosting a weekend shooting party for a dozen friends on the royal estate at Sandringham, Norfolk. They are staying with their guests - five of them girls - at secluded Wood Farm on the 20,000-acre estate.
  
  The farmhouse is a mile from Sandringham House where their father Prince Charles and his partner Camilla Parker Bowles have also been entertaining guests this weekend. The young princes spent the day blasting pheasants out of the sky with their friends on an area of marshland well away from the public. The only time they were seen was when William, 20 - who shot his first stag at the age of 14 - was spotted behind the wheel of a Land Rover Discovery with 18-year-old Harry in the back.
  
  An estate worker said: "Their party includes some pretty girls. Both princes are extremely good shots and the young ladies were quite impressed."
  
  "The princes are real country boys at heart. They love coming up here because they can relax and be themselves."
  
  

December 7, 2002 -

• IT'S A WILLS ANGEL
  Prince follows hunt on a motorbike
  
  DAREDEVIL Prince William has found a new way to follow his favourite foxhunt ...by motorbike. But dressed in tweed shooting jacket and green wellies— instead of biker's leather jacket and boots—he's looks more like the mild one than The Wild One. William, 20, is usually mounted on his favourite horse when he joins the Beaufort around his dad Prince Charles's Gloucestershire estate. Now he's taken to following the hunt on his cross-country 125cc motorcycle with the Beaufort's terrier men. The hunt workers chase across fields and woodlands, ready to flush out foxes with their Jack Russell dogs.
  
  "William was covered in mud and having the time of his life," said one passer-by. "It was very wet and mucky. He was riding with the terrier boys all over the fields and then out onto the streets."
  
  His features almost hidden by a full-face helmet, William rode a trendy Yamaha DT125—a street legal motocross bike—for the chase. Although he passed his full motorcycle test earlier this year, he has to wait until his 21st birthday next June before he can ride more powerful machines. The prince normally uses his bike to get round St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, where he's at university.
  
  "He likes the fact that when the helmet goes on, no one has the faintest idea who he is," said one pal.
  
  He also enjoys running round royal estates on quad bikes. And he's even been known to try out push bikes for a wacky polo match against his cousin, Zara Phillips.
  
  

December 6, 2002 -

• Charles 'n Wills shootout
  PRINCE Charles took on son William yesterday — to see who could bag the most birds.
  
  The Princes hosted rival shooting parties at Sandringham. It was the first time William, 20, had staged his own. Eight pals joined him as they tried to kill scores of birds. The group included two girls — while two others watched. But Charles’s team went on to win the contest.
  
  A worker on the Norfolk estate said: “He had more experienced shooters on his side and they bagged more birds than William and his friends.”
  
  William is one of the best shots in the Royal Family. His dad gave him a £20,000 rifle — complete with a gold inlay — to mark his first year achievements at St Andrew’s University, Fife.
  
  William killed his first stag at the age of 14 during a Balmoral holiday — prompting protests from animal rights activists.
  
  Charles, 54, has also got into hot water over his love of blood sports.
  
  He has lobbied MPs — including Prime Minister Tony Blair — to express his opposition to plans to abolish hunting with hounds.
  
  

December 6, 2002 -

• Prince Harry's spiky ginger locks are as famous as his mischievous grin, and now they've earned him a spot on a list of the UK's top celebrity male hairstyles.
  
  The 18-year-old's fashionable cut, which no doubt also helped him top a recent poll of London's most dateable men, put him at a respectable number six on the roster, ahead of both pop star Robbie Williams and football hunk Michael Owen.
  
  However, Harry was unable to beat Blue vocalist and fellow heart-throb Duncan, whose equally spiked look took the number one spot on the Brylcreem hair products survey. The boy bander upset the man with possibly the most-watched locks in the UK, David Beckham. The England captain must make "do" at number two, though he did pass up trendy upstart Will Young, who was second runner-up.
  
  The list also included the worst male hairstyles – Ozzy Osbourne apparently has Britain's most tragic tresses, beating out not-so-stiff competition from Noel Gallagher, whose fringed mop top put him at number two. Trips to the barber might also be a good idea for ponytailed goal keeper David Seaman, actor Martin Kemp and Celebrity Big Brother winner Mark Owen, who also made the list.
  
  

December 1, 2002 -

• Hunt saboteur 'can't guarantee prince's safety'
  
  An animal rights activist admitted yesterday that he could not guarantee the safety of the Royal Family during anti-hunt protests. Paul Richardson, who has appeared on television as an authority on wildlife, was responding to a report that saboteurs planned to knock Prince William off his horse the next time he rides to hounds.
  
  A Sunday newspaper alleged that Mr Richardson, who runs the Cotswolds Swan Rescue centre, was organising saboteurs to disrupt the Beaufort Hunt in Gloucestershire on Boxing Day. He was quoted as telling an undercover reporter that if Prince William participated in the Beaufort Hunt, he would be "overjoyed" to see him unseated. Yesterday, Mr Richardson said that if members of the Royal Family went hunting they had to bear the consequences. However, he denied that he would set out to injure any member of the Royal Family or any other rider.
  
  He told The Telegraph: "If the royals or anybody else falls off a horse and breaks an arm, then so be it. That is their problem. I haven't got sympathy with them. But there is no way I would have a go or get anyone else to have a go at getting people off horses to get them injured."
  
  He "categorically denied" that he had told the reporter that he would welcome Prince William being knocked off a horse.
  
  The Sunday Express claimed to have infiltrated a group calling itself the Beaufort Fox Sabs. Mr Richardson, who denied any knowledge of the group, was quoted as saying: "The problem with the Beaufort Hunt is that they are really tough. The huntsmen don't mince about. They get stuck in and beat us up.
  
  "To take them on we need 30 or 40 of us. Boxing Day is going to be ideal because that is the day you get the royals out. You can't guarantee that Prince William will be there but if he is we can knock him off."
  
  Yesterday, Mr Richardson, 62, who has appeared on the Channel 4 programme Pet Rescue, admitted that he was involved in "hunt sabbing", and that he had sympathies with the Animal Liberation Front.
  
  "Everyone knows I am animal rights and hunt sabs," he said, adding that he was a member of the Hunt Saboteurs' Association. "We don't go to meetings just because the royals are there. We go to save the fox. It doesn't matter whether it is a small hunt or the Beaufort."