Royal rape allegations

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Buckingham Palace was once again rocked by scandal when a former royal valet said this week he was raped by a male servant to Prince Charles—and that the prince covered up the assault. George Smith said that one night in 1989, he got drunk and passed out at the home of one of Prince Charles’ top aides. “I woke up. I was hurting,” he told the Daily Mail. “He was just laughing. He knew that he had got his way with me.” The unnamed servant said the sex was consensual, and Charles backed him up. Only Diana, Smith said, took his side. When Smith was later hospitalized for depression, Diana taped his story. The tape was one of the items alleged to have been stolen by Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler, before the queen stepped in last week to halt Burrell’s trial. Now the tape is nowhere to be found, and lawmakers are calling for an independent investigation into the alleged rape and coverup.