Daily Mail, November 4 2002

Republicans are in seventh heaven. The spectacular fiasco of the Paul Burrell trial has handed them another opportunity to put the boot into the monarchy.

Having failed to finish off the Royal Family after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and forced instead to grind their teeth at the outpouring of loyalty on the death of the Queen Mother, they have now seized upon the astonishing denouement of the Burrell trial to spread once again a cloud of ignorance, idiocy and ideological bile.

The Queen’s eleventh-hour recall of her now famous meeting with Mr Burrell demonstrates – they say – that the root cause of the fiasco is that the Queen is above the law.

Apparently, the reason an innocent man almost went to prison was because court cases are prosecuted in the name of the Crown. The fact that the Queen sat on information without telling anyone shows that the monarchy is beyond the reach of justice.

The most ludicrous suggestion came --as usual -- from the Liberal Democrats, who said prosecutions should no longer brought in the name of the Crown but by a public prosecutor.

Such silliness is clearly contagious. Even the historian Lord Blake – who cannot be accused of republican sympathies – is suggesting that cases should be prosecuted in the name of the state.

But what earthly good would that have done in this case where the state public prosecutor screwed up big-time? For the root cause of this débâcle was not the constitution, but the utterly astounding incompetence of both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The constitutional argument is a monumental red herring. The Queen’s meeting with Mr Burrell was not concealed because she was beyond the reach of justice. How could it be, since it was the Queen who eventually made the encounter known?

She didn’t speak about it earlier for the simple reason that no-one asked her. This was purely because of an incomprehensible decision that she should not be troubled with such questioning. Mr Burrell had mentioned the meeting in a statement. The police, acting on legal advice, had failed to follow it up.

It is further being claimed that the Queen could not have given evidence for the defence against herself. The absurdity of ‘Regina versus Regina’ is a nice conceit, but it is wholly irrelevant here. For cases are brought only nominally in the name of the Crown. The Queen is no more involved in court cases than she is in posting our letters through the Royal Mail.

Nor is it true that she couldn’t give evidence. There was nothing to stop her from doing so. True, she couldn’t be compelled to do so or forced to undergo cross-examination. But that was clearly unnecessary here anyway. A mere statement would have sufficed at any time – as, indeed, events came to prove.

It is true that the Queen cannot be found guilty of any offence, because as the embodiment of the state she is the fount of justice. But how, in heaven’s name, is that supposed to have affected the trial of Mr Burrell?

The idea that the constitution has somehow got in the way of justice here is demonstrably absurd. The cause of this fiasco is very different. This prosecution should never have been brought. The police rested their case on a series of assertions which fell apart well before the Queen’s intervention.

Officers had told the Prince of Wales and Prince William in August 2001 that Mr Burrell had sold the Princess’s possessions, that he had become wealthy as a result and that he had helped staff dress up in the Princess’s clothes.

In fact, they had no evidence for these claims whatsoever. Yet not only did they grossly mislead the princes, but this cock and bull story turned out to be the lynchpin of the prosecution decision to bring the case.

It beggars belief that such a case should have been brought to court with not a shred of evidence to back up its core assertions. The police and CPS were both at fault. The police were fundamentally incompetent. But surely the whole point of the CPS’s existence is to make sure that the prosecution case stands up.

It was not until two weeks ago, when it became clear during the trial that the police had misled the Prince of Wales, that he realised that he had been led up the garden path. The shattering nature of this revelation may in itself explain all that then followed.

Originally, he had been against the prosecution of Mr Burrell, whether out of affection for the former butler or from fear of what he might reveal in court.

But this view had changed after the crucial meeting at Highgrove, where the police had told the princes of Mr Burrell’s alleged infamy. Just consider what effect that would have had. Here were the police telling them that Mr Burrell had not only monstrously profited from selling the Princess’s possessions, but had mocked her memory too. Just imagine how they would have viewed such appalling treachery.

And then just imagine the effect on the Prince of Wales when he learned that what the police had told him about Mr Burrell was simply untrue. It was he who leapt into action upon hearing his mother’s account just three days after realising he had been misled. Just imagine also the effect on the Queen. Her conversation with Mr Burrell would suddenly have been cast in a different light for the third time.

In any event, just suppose she had indeed come forward much earlier with her recollection of that meeting. To whom would she have made it available? To Mr Burrell’s defence. But she must surely have assumed – as would anyone – that Mr Burrell himself would have informed his defence team of all relevant information that could have helped him. The reason he restricted himself to an oblique reference that everyone missed remains a mystery.

Of course, it was highly convenient that the Queen made her intervention shortly before Mr Burrell hade a chance to release who knows what skeletons from the royal closet. So not surprisingly, conspiracy theorists are having a field day. But why on earth would the Queen have intervened in this way, prompting so much furore and republican mischief-making, when she could have discreetly scuppered the trial far earlier?

It is not the reputation of the Royal Family that lies in ruins but those of the police and the CPS. How can an élite police squad have failed to discover that Mr Burrell had made a lot of money from his book and from speaking engagements? How can the police have launched a prosecution on the basis of evidence that did not exist? How can the CPS have backed such a case? Are they all asleep or half-witted? It beggars belief.

In case after case – Damilola Taylor, Jill Dando, Stephen Lawrence, now Paul Burrell – the police have shown themselves incapable of mounting a properly run operation. In case after case, the CPS has also proved itself utterly useless.

The constitution is a diversion for republicans. The core problem is dire institutional incompetence, which threatens the liberty and safety of all the Queen’s subjects.

Posted by admin at November 4, 2002