Paul Burrell

Great Debates
1

Should the Burrell scandal be the last nail in the coffin of this flawed Royal Family?

Not only do they manipulate the British legal system to save their Royal Faces but they treat the British public with contempt.

For the benefit of those outside the UK please allow me to explain. Months ago Princess Diana’s butler, Paul Burrell, was charged with the theft of many of Diana’s possessions. After a trial costing millions the charge has been dropped on the grounds that the queen had given Burrell permission to take the goods. (Since they didn’t belong to the queen how could she give permission?) And, if so, why did the queen allow the charge to be brought against Burrell in the first place?

It is widely recognised in the UK that the trial has been dropped because too much Royal dirty washing was being disclosed to the public…

2

No, the prosecution has simply been abandoned on a legal technicality. The problem was not that ‘the queen had given Burrell permission to take the goods’ but rather that she may have been informed by him of his decision to remove some of Diana’s papers. The Queen’s permission was not required. That Burrell did inform the Queen has not been established. Moreover, as those were not the only goods that he is alleged to have taken, this does not mean that the charges brought against him were incorrect. All it means is that the prosecution recognise that they and the police have blundered on that particular point and that the jury would almost certainly count that against them. The Queen did not ‘allow the charge to be brought against Burrell in the first place’; she was not consulted (it would have been improper if she had been) and Buckingham Palace went out of its way not to interfere. The Queen and Prince Charles intervened on Burrell’s behalf as soon as it was realised that there was a problem. The case had already highlighted astonishing incompetence on the part of the police and a number of other individuals, but nothing that emerged could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as ‘Royal dirty washing’.

Here are the statements issued by the prosecution counsel and by Mr. Burrell.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2386313.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2386903.stm

3

So if the Queen says it’s OK to break the law, then it is? I don’t believe she’s executor of the Diana estate.

Also, the prosecution has no grasp of punctuation:

4

What makes you think that the Queen asked, encouraged or even condoned anyone to break the law? All we know is that Burrell may (or may not) have told her that he had removed some of Diana’s papers. You’re jumping to conclusions in assuming that, if so, the Queen knew that he had done so without the permission of the executors (assuming, that is, that he didn’t have the executors’ permission, a point which was in dispute between the two sides in the case).

5

My first thought was, “why stop the trial now, just before Burrell is due to go in the witness box”? It’s obvous, he’s blackmailing the Queen! He’s said to her, “you get me off of this, or I’ll tell everything I know.”

6

Without comment I toss this into the pot.

Butler ‘did not ask’ if he could take items
24 October 2002
The Royal butler Paul Burrell had not asked permission from the Bishop of London, an executor of the will of Diana, Princess of Wales, to remove property from Kensington Palace, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

7

I think that many of the problems of this case may well be laid at the feet of the person responsible for the investigation.

First off, when Burrels house was searched, they didn’t do it particularly thoroughly or perhaps they would not have had to return a second time.This is not surprising, the police were so ill-prepared to search a house that they had to borrow a torch from a neighbor, the loft where most of the items were found was never visited by Chief Inspector Maxine de Brunner because she was afraid of heights, and it seems that this search was not supervised properly since so many items were missed first time around.
As the chief investigating officer, Ms Brunner’s duty was to ensure that she detailed competant staff to catalogue everything, as it was no photos of the loft were taken prior to clearing the items out, which is extremely poor practice.

The investigation relied on officers misleading interviewees by stating that they had evidence that Diana’s possessions were being sold abroad and that bank records confirmed this, along with further videotaped evidence and tape recordings of Mr Burrel allegedly doing talking about, and carrying out such sales.

Records of those conversations where such misleading and absolutely untrue statements were made were the subject of a D-notice(secrecy) to prevent the defence from finding out who had said what to whom.

There were fuirther attempts by the prosecution to withold evidence by using the D-notice, which is designed to be used to prevent damage to national security during things such as espionage and counter terrorism trials, to protect sources, as such this was a gross abuse of a legal procedure by the prosecution.

When confronted in court with her false statements about the ‘evidence’ against Mr Burrell as regards tapes, videos and conversation witnesses, (the D-notice application had been refused) Ms Brunner was forced to admit that no such evidence existed, which in turn means that witnesses who had been told that it did exist, had been led in an improper way into making their statements.

It also seems that there is plenty of other evidence in favour of Mr Burrel that might well have sunk the prosecution case, but we will never know what this is as it has been withdrawn following the collapse of the trial.

The posessions would have only had intrinsic value unless their provenance could be established, and that would have instantly pointed the finger ar Burrel.

8

Off to Great Debates.

9

(Extract from Casdave)
“There were fuirther attempts by the prosecution to withold evidence by using the D-notice, which is designed to be used to prevent damage to national security during things such as espionage and counter terrorism trials, to protect sources, as such this was a gross abuse of a legal procedure by the prosecution.”

Isn’t it likely that the Palace spin doctors tried to impose the D-Notice to stifle evidence embarrassing to the monarchy?

10

There may, or may not, have been attempts not to embarass the royal family, I think that these considerations certainly had an effect on the way the investigation was conducted in that Mr Burrel’s assertion that he had spoken with HM about it was not taken up by the investigating officers.

The D-notice applications that have been made public appear, for the moment, to have been more geared to denying the defence the right to access to relevant and material evidence in the hope of gaining a conviction without due process of law.

Maybe it was thought that a swift conviction without much in depth investigation and revealing of potentially embarrassing details would be ‘a good thing’.
The reality is that if this had been carried out correctly, there would not even have been any most public prosecution, and there would not have been any potential for that embarrassment to occur.

As it is, it almost looks as if HM was either uncaring about the fate of a trusted employee, or stupefyingly ignorant about the implications of what was going on, personally I think that HM is simply so busy that it seemed very minor at the time and her conversation was half forgotten in the world of other more pressing matters, and I think she later deliberately tried to keep out of things for fear of being seen to interfere with the judicial process.

So far it seems that no item was ever sold, nor any attempt made to do so, which was central to the prosecution case as it was supposed to be the motive.

Had the prosecution taken a differant line about the removal of those items, such as the motive being differant to commercial gain, then the investigation might have taken a differant route, the fact is that the chief investigating officer had made her mind up very early on instead of keeping an open mind and arriving at decisions based solely upon the evidence.

If I were conducting an inquiry into the way this investigation was carried out I would certainly want to know why those who were interviewed were deliberately given false information which was designed only to achieve a certain response from the interviewees rather than the compulsory practice of simply trying to ascertain what those people knew without any prompting.

This type of flawed police interview has generally been discarded as it has produced wrongful convictions, especially in eyewitness cases, and a senior officer such as Ms Brunner should be held to account for using methods that are unacceptable in law.

Given Ms Brunner’s deceptions, the prosecution case was seriously weakened and IMHO its this reason that the D-notices were applied for, to effect a cover-up.

You do not need Palace spin doctors to explain this, a high profile case with lots of ambitious folk trying to enhance their reputations are all the reasons needed to hide incompetance.

11

Extract from Casdave
“So far it seems that no item was ever sold, nor any attempt made to do so, which was central to the prosecution case as it was supposed to be the motive.”

So, if I steal a car and have no intention of selling it that is not theft?

12

I’ve never understood the motivation behind prosecuting this guy anyway.

13

toscar

The prosecution based their entire case on the premise that the motivation for theft was for personal gain through selling.

The fact that Mr Burrel had a conversation with HM saying that he was safekeeping completely demolished the motive, and since no sale took place this tends to reinforce that interpretation(and this is apparently due to Diana’s sister who had been destroying papers and letters which led to his concern)

So at the very worst that the prosecution could paint Mr Burrel is that he was a misguided but extremely loyal person, and this does not make for convictions for theft.

Had the prosecution taken a differant line then they might have been able to secure some result, who knows ?
You cannot simply change your evidence or the charge once the court proceedings have begun, a charge can be downgraded perhaps but in this case even that charge of removal without the owners consent would have failed.

14

It’s easy to speculate about embarrassing Royal secrets, but that’s all it is, speculation.

I can understand why the police and the CPS, who would seem to have made a thorough cock-up of the whole process, might be happy to see speculation along these lines. But that doesn’t mean there’s any substance to it.

Actually, Burrell’s remarks about the executors “trying to shred history” might indicate that they’re the people with something to hide. But, then again, they might not. See? You can take this sort of virtually fact-free guesswork and go anywhere with it.

15

Could someone please explain why they searched his house with a torch? Did they burn it down, or were they threatening to?

16

Could someone please explain why they searched his house with a torch? Did they burn it down, or were they threatening to?

17

While the image of villagers surrounding Burrell’s home, pitchforks and torches held high is pleasing, I must point out that “torch” also means “flashlight” in British usage.

18

hmm…

toscar said:

Yes, if you steal a car then that is theft by definition because you’ve stolen the car. However the sentence you wrote above is a tautological spiral that wheels down to a small point and eventually disappears in a puff of smoke because it means nothing at all.

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it (Section 1, Theft Act 1968)

This definition comprises several elements and the next step is to work through them:

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly - this is the sticking point, we’ll come back to it in a minute

appropriates property - the subject matter of the offence has to be property that is capable of being stolen eg wild animals cannot be stolen but domesticated animals can, wild foliage (like mushrooms or flowers) cannot be stolen but cultivated foilage can. Interestingly, dead bodies cannot be stolen although parts of a human body can.

Obviously Burrell did appropriate property.

belonging to another

No problem here, Diana’s possessions clearly were under the control of the executors and ultimately belonged to the beneficiaries of the will.

with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it

Hard to know. This is something that has to be shown in court. Whether Burrell intended to keep the objects or return them (as he claims) is something only he knows. This aspect goes to motive. This is where I think Casdave may have got it wrong. Casdave was suggesting the prosecution’s case failed because of lack of motive.

The prosecution’s case didn’t fall on motive, it fell on dishonesty. Burrell told the Queen that he had some “papers” (although he didn’t tell her about all the other stuff he was holding such as jewellery, photos etc).

The prosecution’s case was relying on the fact that he hadn’t told anyone that he had appropriated property and that he was therefore holding this property dishonestly.

The fact he told the Queen that he had some stuff blew a hole in the dishonesty aspect of the offence, not the motive aspect of the offence.

We don’t know what his true motive was because a) it was never proven in court and b) we are not God.

Maybe he intended to give some of the stuff back (the stuff he told the Queen about) and keep the rest. Maybe he intended to give all the stuff back or maybe he intended to give none of the stuff back, who knows?

There is something mighty fishy about this case however. Why didn’t the Queen mention this conversation she had with Burrell before the trial got going (I’m afraid I don’t buy the “she was too busy with other things” argument)?

Why did Burrell suddenly “remember” this conversation after the Queen told the court about it? You’re telling me he simply forgot this conversation, this all-important conversation that would have got him off?

Apparently he mentioned having a conversation with the Queen during police questioning but he never expanded on it much. His lawyers would have grilled him relentlessly about this conversation precisely in order to disprove the dishonesty aspect of the theft offence. It seems funny that he only remembered the details of this conversation after the Queen “reminded” him of it.

OK maybe he was loyal so he kept quiet, but loyal enough to go to prison for 7 years and have his character permanently ruined? To be forever labelled as the butler who stole Princess Diana’s belongings after she died?

The fact he made no move to sell the stuff means little, maybe he hoped to hang on to it for a while until the fuss had died down.

The inescapable suggestion that I am making is that maybe this little “conversation” the two of them had, Burrell and the Queen, was manufactured to get Burrell off because the trial was getting too damaging for the royal reputation, and maybe it was about to get uglier, so the Queen decided she’d better stop it pronto.

Of course, this is just idle speculation, I have no proof. But I’m not the only one left wondering, several MPs have been asking questions along similar lines.

19

According to some reports, she, like everyone else, had assumed that the prosecution had evidence that Burrell had sold some of the items. After all, that is what the police had told Prince Charles. If the prosecution had been able to show that he had, that would have been their proof of his intention of permanently depriving the rightful owners of those items. It would have been irrelevant whether he had mentioned to a third party that he had removed those or other items. It was only once the trial was in progress that it became clear that the prosecution could not establish that any sales had taken place. Without that evidence, they would instead have had to argue that Burrell had been acting dishonestly because he had removed the items surreptitiously and then retained them. His conversation with the Queen raised doubts about the assumption that he had acted surreptitiously.

The suggestion that the conversation was ‘manufactured’ in order to halt the trial is simply silly, given that, as you point out, we know that he had already mentioned it in passing under police questioning. That he did so without realising its potential significance tends to support his credibility on that particular point.

As for the theory that the Queen stopped the trial in order to silence Burrell, it remains to be seen whether he will remain silent. As could have easily been foreseen, the sensational manner in which the trial was stopped has merely enhanced his commercial value as tabloid fodder, a point which is amply demonstrated by this morning’s papers.

20

OK - so he may or may not have taken things for ‘safekeeping’, but there are still too many questions.
How long was he planning to keep them safe?
How long can one hold another’s belongings before it counts as theft?
How safe were things in his loft?

Just because the police appear to have screwed up and the case cancelled on a technicality, doesn’t mean that he is innocent

Russell