The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

The Royal Family Phone-Hacking Trial

Six things we learned about the Royals this week (allegedly)

By James Doleman |

December 13, 2013 | 5 min read

The British tabloid press has an almost insatiable appetite for stories about the Royal family so it is no surprise that the biggest of them all, the now defunct News of the World, had a dedicated Royal reporter, Clive Goodman. This week, the phone-hacking trial has been hearing excerpts from emails Goodman sent to his editor, Andy Coulson, containing some stories he had heard which never made the paper. None of these are, of course, confirmed, but we can allow our imaginations to run wild.

I cannut believe it: The Queen is said to like savoury foods

1. Queen Elizabeth II doesn't like people eating her nuts

Goodman told Coulson that Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was "furious about police stealing bowls of nuts and nibbles left out for her in apartments". Her majesty, the email continued, had a "very savoury tooth" so Royal flunkies left out bowls of "cashews, bombay mix and almonds", only for Royal police officers to scoff them up. The resourceful Royal was not going to take that lying down and cunningly, Goodman claimed, "started marking the bowls" to catch the hungry coppers in the act.

2. Prince William wore a green bikini at a party

Under the editorship of Rebekah Brooks, the News of the World allegedly paid £4,000 to get a copy of a photograph of the future King of England at a party where he dressed up as a "Bond girl" in a bikini. The paper ran the story, but to preserve the Royal image used a "mock up" of William's head pasted on to the body of an appropriately swimwear-clad male model. Sadly, despite extensive police inquiries, the original photo has never been found.

3. And a feather boa at another

Defence lawyers argued in court that notes of a conversation with Rebekah Brooks which mentioned a revealing photo of Prince William were not a reference to the "bikini pic" but to another party photo where he wore only his underpants and a feather boa. The News of the World chose, presumably on the grounds of taste, not to run that story, but luckily for the gossip-hungry British public another tabloid, the Sunday People, revealed the photograph a few months later.

4. Despite being colour blind?

Goodman told Coulson that he had heard William was colour blind, which might put a crimp on his ambition to be a helicopter pilot. Apparently this was not true as the Prince later flew a whirlybird as a search and rescue pilot for the air force. However, insiders are speculating that Goodman's aborted scoop could be a partial explanation for how the the Royal flyer ended up in hot water later for landing his £15,000 an hour flying machine in his girlfriends garden rather than back at base.

5. Royal phone numbers were pretty easy to get hold of - except for one

Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles' former private secretary, told the court that it was "well known" that staff and police would happily sell the "green book" of confidential aristocratic phone numbers and addresses to to the press while the head of royal telephony informed the court that she simply relied on people shredding old copies themselves rather than asking for them back. But one number the paparazzi were never destined to get a hold of was that of notorious Royal curmudgeon Prince Philip. The monarch's hubby refuses to carry a mobile and gives his private telephone number as the main exchange for Buck house.

6. Warding the swans

Among the grand Royal telephone numbers displayed on the court screen was one that cheered those of us in press seats up no end. It belonged to Christopher Perrins, a professor of ornithology at Oxford University who holds the ancient title of "Warden of the Queen's Swans". Sadly for the media in the corner of the court there was no suggestion that anyone ever hacked the academic's phone. Sworn testimony on how to ward a swan while avoiding a broken arm will unfortunately have to wait for another day.

Click here to read James Doleman's daily reports from the phone-hacking trial

The Royal Family Phone-Hacking Trial

More from The Royal Family

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +