Prince William bikini photo does not exist, claims ex-Sandhurst instructor
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Version 0 of 1. A picture of Prince William in a bikini, for which a former Sandhurst colour sergeant was paid £4,000, never existed, a court has heard. The photograph is at the centre of a criminal case against John Hardy, an instructor at the military academy, who has been charged over selling stories about Princes William and Harry to the Sun 10 years ago. “I have not seen the picture, the police haven’t seen the picture, the Sun haven’t seen it … there is no picture.” said Hardy at the Old Bailey trial. “I’ve never seen a photo of Prince William in a bikini. I never gave a photo of Prince William to anyone,” he added. Hardy is on trial at the Old Bailey for misconduct in public office over allegedly receiving more than £23,000 for leaking information about the princes and others between 2006 and 2008. Jurors heard that the paper’s royal editor, Duncan Larcombe, who is on trial for allegedly aiding and abetting Hardy, phoned him in April 2006 after hearing Prince William had attended a James Bond fancy dress party dressed in a bikini and a Hawaiian shirt. At this point Hardy, who was in Australia at the time, was already a paid source of the paper. He told jurors he “fabricated a story” to make it appear that he could get a photo of Prince William in order to get money out of the Sun. “I said I’d heard about it. At the time I didn’t know [if there was a photo] and asked him to call back in a hour,” he said. Did he phone his colleagues in Sandhurst, asked his counsel Simon Csoka. “No, It would be madness to do that, [to ask] ‘do you have a photo because I’m going to get a lot of money for it’. It would be asking for trouble.” Jurors have already heard about an internal Sun email from Larcombe requesting approval for the £4,000 up-front payment, suggesting the photo belonged to Prince William’s platoon commander at Sandhurst. Larcombe told the jury on Monday that he now knows it was not a platoon commander who had the photograph. Hardy, who was a non-commissioned officer, told jurors he did not tell Larcombe he could get the photo from such a senior officer as he would not have known the officer in question. “There’s no way I would message him, go out for a drink with him. I wouldn’t know him. It would be madness [to ask him if he had the photo],” said Hardy. The paper published a story about the party on 9 September 2006 with a mock-up of the prince’s face on a man’s bikini-clad body. A cash payment was made in June 2006 and picked up by Hardy’s wife Claire at a branch of Thomas Cook in London. Hardy told his wife he had won the money gambling. Hardy who was posted at the military academy between 2004 and 2006, said all he ever passed on to the paper was information that was already in the public domain and not confidential. He told jurors he also had a “self-imposed” rule about his disclosures to the paper which was “never put my soldiers at risk”. Hardy said the first payment he got from the Sun was “the easiest money I’ve ever made” because he had just passed on information about Prince William that had already been in an official army briefing about the prince. He recalled how he had been phoned by the Sun’s royal editor to ask if the prince was getting his first leave of absence five weeks into Sandhurst in 2006. “I said, ‘yes, everyone was banned from leaving in the first five weeks’,” said Hardy. He said he had checked it on the internet first and saw that Lieutenant Colonel Parkinson, who was responsible for dealing with the press at Sandhurst, had already made this public. “Every time I would give something to Duncan, I would check on the internet. Yes, I said, everybody is banned, it was common knowledge, it was all over the internet,” said Hardy. “I didn’t think I had given him any information saying something the lieutenant colonel hadn’t already said,” he said. He said other stories about bayonet training or patrol competition in Wales known as Exercise Long Reach were also based on information that was in the public domain. He said the date and location of the patrol exercise never changed and anyone could have placed the princes on that exercise. He explained six coaches would have taken the 280 cadets on the intake to Wales and the princes’ coach would have been easily identified on the road because “there would be three black range rovers following the coach with the princes”. “Did you consider you were breaking any confidence?” asked Csoka. “No.” “Was there any security issue?” “No, I could class myself as a security expert. There is no security breach saying that Prince William was going on an exercise with 280 others on his intake that for the last five years everyone else on their intake had done,” said Hardy. Hardy told how he once gave Larcombe a link to a YouTube video about nuclear, biological and chemical training for a story about Prince Harry. He didn’t divulge anything confidential. This training was compulsory for all cadets, he said. He twice told jurors that army pay was poor and that he would never have done anything to risk his pension. The perk was the only reason to stay in the army for 22 years, he said. Jurors heard he had to do a second job to make ends meet while at Sandhurst, including stints working at Ascot race course. He was paid between £24,000 and £25,000 after 16 years’ service. “The pay is not very good. Most people don’t do it for the pay.” Out of that, he had to pay £150 a week to get to work because he lived in Windsor at the time. In addition he had a £100-a week-mess bill. Earlier Hardy testified that when he first contacted the Sun, the legal department on the paper told him it was not a criminal offence to leak information. Hardy says the newsdesk didn’t know he was a soldier when he made the initial call, but that the legal department did. “They said I would get into trouble with my employer, but it wasn’t a criminal offence.” Hardy first got in contact with the Sun in 2005 in response to adverts he saw in the paper offering cash for stories. He was keen to pass on stories which showed the princes “in a positive light”. He told how he had spent a year reading made-up and negative stories about Prince Harry, citing one report about the young royal being hospitalised after blisters on his feet got infected. This, he said, was “untrue” and did not happen. “They put some iodine on it and he want back to work,” said Hardy. Asked by his counsel if he understood what the consequences would be if confidential information was leaked, he replied: “Yes. People would die.” He said he knew leaking information, even of no consequence to security, might have got him into trouble, but he said “at my rank, it would have been a slap on the wrist”. Hardy has denied committing misconduct in public office. His wife and Larcombe, who have been charged with aiding and abetting him, have also pleaded not guilty. The trial continues. |