Norman Baker was a British Home Office minister and he’s author of And What Do You Do? What the Royal Family Doesn’t Want You to Know. For years now, Baker has been ringing the alarm that the Windsors are a bunch of lawless and arrogant criminals, conning the British taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Baker is always quoted in stories about the cost of the monarchy or would-be police inquiries into whichever royal figure. Last week, King Charles was “cleared” of any charges involving his long-running cash-for-honours scheme, in which Charles provided knighthoods and British citizenship to anyone handing him a suitcase full of cash. Baker was once again good for some quotes about the situation, and now Baker has written a column about it in the Sunday Times – here’s an excerpt:

When is an offence not an offence? When it involves members of the royal family. On September 5, 2021, I emailed the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police drawing attention to a letter reported in The Sunday Times. It had been sent a fortnight earlier by Michael Fawcett, the trusted aide of Prince Charles, as he then was, and explicitly linked the donation of money to one of the prince’s good causes with the award of an honour to a Saudi Arabian businessman, Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. Such a link is an apparent offence under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

Presented with the evidence on a plate, what did the Met do? As little as possible. After five months, I wrote to the detective inspector allegedly investigating the case to ask why neither Fawcett nor Charles had been spoken to, let alone interviewed under caution. Eventually, the matter was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which suggested the police believed there was a case to answer. Almost two years on, the Met announced last week that the case has been dropped.

The CPS can drop a case for two reasons: insufficient evidence or the fact that prosecution is not in the public interest. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the decision to drop this case is less about the evidence and more about the royal fingerprints on it.

Or was the evidence just thin? Only two people were interviewed under caution by police; it is not clear that Charles or Mafouz – the man who received the honour – was ever spoken to. If you don’t look for evidence, you won’t find it. The Met and the CPS need to explain why the case has been dropped. The Palace denied that Charles knew anything about it but the fact remains that Fawcett was in no position to deliver a knighthood or citizenship, but Charles conceivably was.

We also know that Charles has been prepared to accept money for his good causes from anybody and everybody. This included on at least three occasions personally accepting gifts of €1 million, stuffed into a suitcase, a holdall and Fortnum & Mason bags, from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani.

Charles and the rest of the royals act in a way that suggests they have licence to flout the laws of the land, confident — and with good reason — they will not be held to account. For example, no action was taken in 2016, when Prince Andrew rammed his Range Rover repeatedly into gates in Windsor Great Park, rather than take a short diversion, causing thousands of pounds in damage. Instead, the taxpayer, through the Crown Estate, quietly picked up the bill. Nor was there a prosecution in 2019 after Prince Philip pulled out from a side road into the path of another car, causing a collision and injuries to the occupants.

[From The Times]

I actually forgot that story about Andrew ramming into the gate in Windsor, good lord. Anyway, yes, the Windsors absolutely act as if they’re above the law. I realize that the police would have found it tricky to do a full investigation or a formal interview with Charles, but I think even Charles was expecting more of an investigation. He set up Michael Fawcett as the scapegoat, Charles practically delivered Fawcett to the police gift-wrapped and ready for charges, but the police didn’t even want to do the bare minimum. I wonder what other crimes the Windsors get away with.

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Photos courtesy of Cover Images.