UK News 04-12-2002 Second Butler Trial Collapses who: Princess Diana`s former butler Harold Brown what: Found not guilty as theft trial collapses where: The Old Bailey, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The royal family faced new questions about arcane palace practices and the treatment of staff last night," reports The Guardian, "following the ignominious collapse of a second royal butler trial at the Old Bailey." Yesterday, explains The Telegraph, formal verdicts of not guilty were recorded on the orders of Sir David Calvert-Smith, the Director of Public Prosecutions, in the case against 50 year-old Harold Brown, who had been accused "of stealing a jewel-encrusted model of a dhow, a diamond and emerald bracelet with matching earrings and a daffodil motif worn by [Diana, Princess of Wales] early in her marriage." Accompanied by a satirical cut-and-paste photograph of the royal family standing next to a familiar-looking yellow Robin Reliant parked outside Buck House, The Sun accuses the royal family of "a grubby Del Boy culture" as it emerged that "gifts presented to Royals were passed on to servants, who flogged them to dealers." "When this archetypal Jeeves turned up at Spink and Sons, the jewellers, three months after Princess Diana`s death, with a model boat in a plastic carrier bag, no one batted an eyelid," says The Guardian. "They were apparently used to such behaviour from several royal servants. Hard-up members of the aristocracy could receive a similar service for their valuables." The Times says Mr Brown has always appeared to be "the archetypal Jeeves to the Prince and Princess of Wales, and later to Princess Margaret, during his 30 years in royal service." But, writes Michael Horsnell, "as a member of the homosexual mafia at the royal palaces, he has been implicated in uncorroborated tales of unsavoury incidents." [... more]

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