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ENTIRE ROYAL FAMILY BUGGED BY SPIES

Princess Diana

Thursday January 10,2008

By Richard Palmer Royal Correspondent

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THE Royal Family was routinely bugged by British secret services, the Princess Diana inquest heard yesterday.

The disclosure by Diana’s former police bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, prompted coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker to call for a report into widespread phone tapping of the Royals.

Mr Wharfe told the inquest that all the Royals had been bugged by the British intelligence listening station GCHQ, adding: “I am fairly confident in my own mind that this was routinely done.” In a day of drama at the High Court, Mr Wharfe said the publication of the so-called “Squidgygate” tapes was the result of Diana being bugged by intelligence chiefs.

The Royal Family, in my opinion, were incredibly jealous of her popularity

His spying claims were backed by a bodyguard to Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed who said the couple were under regular surveillance by British agents. It was also confirmed that Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler, will give evidence to the inquest next week during a crucial few days of testimony.

Mr Wharfe, who guarded the Princess between 1987 and 1993, blamed GCHQ for the “Squidgygate” tapes, in which Diana is famously referred to by James Gilbey as “Squidgy” and “Darling”. Mr Wharfe said: “It’s my belief GCHQ at that time were monitoring members of the Royal Family because of heightened IRA activity at the time.” He also believed that Cabinet ministers were under the same surveillance.

During the telephone chat, which was taped in 1989 but only published in 1992 as Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was collapsing, Gilbey, the heir to a gin fortune, is heard telling Diana over and over again: “I love you.”

The conversation was picked up by two radio hams but Mr Wharfe said it was clear to him that GCHQ was responsible for the recording. Mr Wharfe, who left Scotland Yard’s royalty protection department in 2002, said: “It may well have been a loop from nearby Cheltenham, the GCHQ there, because it seems to be rather coincidental that two people independent of each other actually taped the same conversation.”

The former police inspector said Diana confirmed to him that she was the woman on the tape and even rang the newspaper phone line to listen to it. “Diana was more concerned purely from an embarrassment point of view that this was in the public domain,” he told the hearing.

The former police inspector said the Princess had also told him the Queen was “unhappy” and had ordered MI5 to report on the controversy. Michael Mansfield, QC for Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed, asked the coroner to seek details of what action, if any, MI5 took.

Lord Justice Baker said he would look into the matter. Mr Al Fayed has claimed that Diana and Dodi were murdered in Paris in 1997 by British agents on the orders of Prince Philip because the Establishment was opposed to Diana marrying a Muslim. Mr Wharfe said Diana had told him she thought the security services were routinely spying on her and other members of the Royal Family.

He described how in May 1993 one of her butlers, either Paul Burrell or Harold Brown, called in four men from a Brighton-based company posing as carpet cleaners to debug the phones at Kensington Palace without telling the police. Their cover was blown and they were detained when they asked to check the mainframe telephone system.

Mr Wharfe told the jury he felt that Diana was right to mistrust other members of the Royal Family and their powerful private secretaries. “The Royal Family, in my opinion, were incredibly jealous of her popularity,” he said.

Mr Wharfe’s claims were backed at the hearing by Lee Sansum, one of Diana and Dodi’s bodyguards, who told the inquest that the Al Fayed family was constantly monitored by British agents. He said he often spotted surveillance teams trailing Dodi and Diana, and sometimes banged on their car windows to tell them to go away.

The hearing also heard that Paul Burrell will give evidence on Monday. Diana’s butler, who was accused of stealing £5million worth of the Princess’s possessions after her death but then cleared in October 2002, promises to be a key and explosive witness.

Burrell will be asked about the background to a letter in which Diana wrote that Prince Charles was plan- ning to have her killed. He will also face pressure to provide further details about his claim that the Queen once warned him about “dark forces” at work in the country.

Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, is also due to appear next week. She will be asked about the alleged disappearance of letters in which Prince Philip is said to have threatened the Princess and called her a “harlot and a trollop”. The inquest, which is expected to last six months, continues today.

A FUTILE ROYALTY

10.01.08, 11:33pm

'Off with her head' ordered the Queen of Hearts.

• Posted by: Expressdownunder • Report Comment

CAMILLA

10.01.08, 11:01pm

Camilla feared that the British public still hated her enough to attack her home. And judging by some of the comments that are posted on the inquest site she was quite right.

• Posted by: crowood • Report Comment

REALLY!

10.01.08, 7:48pm

With regards to this article...

• Posted by: G0LDENARR0W • Report Comment

WRONG PEOPLE!!!

10.01.08, 4:41pm

Why did they spend all their time bugging the royal family who work so hard for our country, when they should be bugging asylum seekers and the unemployed!

• Posted by: HoneyBea • Report Comment

ROYALS BUGGED

10.01.08, 3:56pm

So what!

• Posted by: KatieW • Report Comment

WHAT HAD SHE DONE THEN?

10.01.08, 1:36pm

What did she think that she had done that she warranted being spied upon?
If she had done nothing ,in her mind, that warranted it why was she afraid and what could have been revealed? No point in spying on someone for no reason as at the end of the day they would still come up with a blank.
Who needs to read books when all is needed is a bit of common sense seeing a situation from another angle

• Posted by: Maggie • Report Comment