As Godfather to Prince William, heir to the British throne, Prince Charles chose his close friend and adviser Laurens van der Post. A paedophile.
Van der Post raped a 14-year-old girl who had been given into his care for the sea voyage from South Africa to London. He then installed her in a flat in London as his mistress, but abandoned her when she became pregnant age 15 (though he sent a monthly payment). She was not the only one. The victim later stated that van der Post was “sick” and “he knew how to pick his victims”.
In a sycophantic authorised biography of then-Prince Charles written thirty years ago, Jonathan Dimbleby wrote that “for Prince Charles there was a missing dimension”, that he felt his life lacked a spiritual awareness. At age 25 Charles sought out Van der Post after reading his books, and Van der Post became his spiritual Guru. Charles continually sought his advice and absorbed his mystic teachings. Not only is Van der Post William’s Godfather, he gave marriage counselling to Charles and Diana and was a frequent guest at Highgrove, Sandringham and Balmoral. On his death Charles initiated the Van der Post Memorial Lectures, held inside St James’s Palace.
There is a question which will run throughout this article, which is how much did people know? In the 1970s and 1980s it was not public knowledge that Van der Post was a paedophile. But then Charles was not the public. Then as now, if somebody becomes very close to the heir to the throne with frequent access to Royal palaces, they are going to be under close investigation by the security services.
I find it wildly improbable that the security services did not find out about Van der Post’s predilection for young girls and that he had been paying the expenses of an illegitimate daughter originally fathered on a young teenage mother. There is also the question of Van der Post’s wider lies. It is possibly neither here nor there that in fact Van der Post had only ever spent a fortnight with The Bushmen of the Kalahari when he penned his famous book, full of lies and plagiarism.
But that he was actually a Lieutenant (and at times acting Captain) rather than a Lieutenant Colonel as he claimed, would have been instantly discovered. It is worth noting here that Van der Post’s famous military memoir, which became the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence starring David Bowie, was massively embellished, not just in terms of his rank.
The Royalist defence of Charles’ associations rests, rather peculiarly, on the claim that any huckster and paedophile can just get entry to the Palace inner circle without any checks. That is just not true. What appears to be true is that paedophilia was treated as a peccadillo.
Before Van der Post, the man credited by all biographers as the greatest influence in shaping Charles’ character was his great uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Born in Austria as Prince Louis of Battenberg, Charles can hardly be blamed for Mountbatten, who was thrust upon him as a child.
I hope not too literally.
Mountbatten was a paedophile, which was an open secret in upper class society – including the diplomatic service – long before his death. He benefited from the lifetime protection of the inner Royal circle, which was absolute in his lifetime. It has only become mainstream acknowledged in the past very few years.
That is deliberately phrased as “acknowledged”, not “knowledge” – there was not a Fleet Street Editor in 50 years who did not know; they just did not publish it. Mountbatten’s paedophilia was fuelled by his access to underprivileged children, from New Delhi to Rabat to Kincora Boy’s Home.
Mountbatten spent more time with Charles in his childhood and early adulthood than Charles’ own parents did, including encouraging and coaching him to have as much sex with as many “non-marriageable” girls as possible, and providing a venue for it in his homes. After he died Charles said, “Life will never be the same now that he is gone”. It is not a stretch to think that Van der Post – whom he first met four years before Mountbatten’s death – filled the emotional void.
A 1944 FBI dossier described Mountbatten as “a homosexual with a perversion for small boys”. This was two years before his appointment as Viceroy of India, where the open debauchery of the Mountbattens was an open secret in high-level Indian society.
It is worth noting that in this period his military aide-de-camp was one Willie McRae. I have always believed that the murder of McRae by the British state was related to his knowledge of Mountbatten and elite paedophile rings: in this context McRae’s ties with Irish Nationalists may be relevant, as they assassinated Mountbatten over the abuse at Kincora.
In Mountbatten’s case there is no doubt at all that the security services knew all about his paedophile, and covered for him.
So at the death of van der Post in 1996, Charles had lost two men he viewed, exclusively, as guides and spiritual mentors, and from whom he took the most intimate personal device. There is nobody else who fits this description. Both were extremely vicious and calculating paedophiles, shielded by class privilege from the consequences. So, in 1996, to whom did Charles turn as his new “mentor”?
Jimmy Savile was introduced to a 17-year-old Charles in 1966 by Mountbatten, who vouched for him. The official story is that Mountbatten had met Savile through military veteran fundraising.
You can believe that was the primary shared interest of two prolific paedophiles, if you so please.
Savile cultivated the relationship long-term, and by the 1980s was corresponding assiduously with Charles, which continued for over 20 years. Savile was yet another person to whom Charles turned for marriage counselling. In scores of letters, it is always Charles seeking Savile’s advice and adulating him. There is no record of Charles using the word “mentor” to describe his relationship with Savile, but Diana literally stated that Savile was a “sort of mentor” to Charles.
I presume I do not have to explain that Savile was throughout this period one of the most prolific paedophiles in British history. It is widely believed the royal cachet helped to protect him from prosecution. A huge amount was known to the police, to BBC managers and to various other branches of the British establishment, but Savile was untouchable.
In 2000 Charles constructed a chapel at his home at Highgrove, and a stained glass window in it commemorates Laurens van der Post. Before that window, Charles kneeled for long prayer vigils with his new spiritual guide, Bishop Peter Ball – who was also a friend of Jimmy Savile. It was Savile who introduced Ball to Charles.
Rather like Epstein, Ball was a known paedophile who had got off the first time without incarceration. He had, in 1993, accepted a police caution for a ceremony in which he had forced a 17-year-old novitiate, Neil Todd, to kneel naked in the snow for hours, whipped him, and then forced him to perform a sex act. The police also investigated at that time numerous other allegations, including two very similar ones.
The decision to caution was taken on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service. As the Independent Inquiry into Child Abuse Report 2022 primly noted (p.378):
The first report on the Anglican Church investigation – The Anglican Church Case Studies 1. The Diocese of Chichester 2. The Response to Allegations Against Peter Ball Investigation Report – was published in May 2019. It considered the Diocese of Chichester, where there were multiple allegations of child sexual abuse, and whether there were inappropriate attempts by people of prominence to interfere in the criminal justice process after Bishop Peter Ball was first accused of child sexual offences.
I cannot, though, identify the passage referred to of the Diocese of Chichester Report.
Yet immediately after this, and for the next 17 years, Charles provided Ball with rather splendid rent-free accommodation on Charles’ estate. Ball was suspended by the Church of England as a priest and, astonishingly, Charles asked him to officiate at services and perform the Eucharist at his personal chapel in Highgrove, as reported in the Church Times. Ball was frequently in his company and was a personal guest at Charles’ 2005 wedding to Camilla.
In 2015, Charles gifted Ball £20,000. This was said to be simply a friendly gesture – exactly why is unclear. Charles is very definitely not known for personal generosity.
In 2015, Bishop Ball was finally convicted of 12 horrific instances of sexual abuse of boys and young men, all under the guise of religious ritual. Prince Charles put out a public denial that he had interfered in the 1993 decision not to prosecute. My surmise is that he had not done so directly, but rather let it be known through others. That is how it works.
The BBC actually reported that:
Ball’s court case heard that a member of the royal family – who has never been named – was among a host of public figures who supported him when he avoided charges in 1993.
The article goes on to carry this extremely over-specific and narrow denial from the Crown Prosecution Service:
The Crown Prosecution Service has publicly stated that it had neither received nor seen any correspondence from a member of the Royal Family when Ball was under investigation in 1992–93.
Note this very deliberately does not rule out a word in the ear at a function, a phone call, or – as it would be done – getting a friend known to be close to Charles to give the message.
Charles in fact in 1997, two years after his police caution, told Ball that he would directly intervene against Ball victim Neil Todd. “I will see off this horrible man if he tries anything again,” Charles wrote to Ball.
Todd did not live to see Ball ultimately convicted. He committed suicide in 2012. This was convenient for Ball, but there were plenty of other victims who testified in 2015.
I have no doubt the Royal Family will have known about Uncle Louis’s sins – he had an official entourage and was plugged in to the system. The immediate civil servants and close protection officers always know everything. I have already explained why I do not believe van der Post’s paedophilia was unknown. That goes double for Savile – about whom authorities had a huge amount of knowledge, but whose royal connections were a key part of his protection.
While there is no doubt whatsoever Charles knew about Bishop Peter Ball, Ball’s royal circle protection appears to have broken the surface.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, I do not know any paedophiles – but none of us can be absolutely certain we do not. Of one thing, however, I feel extremely confident. The four most-valued advisers in my life, the people whose advice I have most craved and to whom I have turned in times of crisis, are not all paedophiles. I should be astonished if any of them were.
You just can’t have your four closest non-official life guides as paedophiles by accident. You just can’t. It has been put to me that Charles, by nature of his role, knows vastly more people than ordinary folk. That may or may not be true (there is a counter-argument about privilege and protection). But it if were true, it does not improve things. If there is a much larger-than-normal pool from whom Charles could have chosen, it makes it even weirder he chose four prolific paedophiles.
To be clear, prolific paedophilia is extremely abnormal behaviour.
What I do not understand is why paedophilia appears so prevalent and attractive to politicians and the ruling class. People who have much more power and wealth than the rest of us, have the ability (rightly or wrongly) to get attractive adult consenting partners more easily. So why do they, apparently in disproportionate numbers, seek to prey on the young and defenceless?
It is more than time we got rid of the Medieval system of monarchy. That will not solve the corruption of corporate interests controlling the state, or redress the appalling inequality of wealth. It will not even do much to end elite class paedophilia. But as one clear demonstration of the rotten nature of British society, the tale of the King’s four paedophile mentors is extremely instructive.
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You make a good case for abolishing the UK monarchy altogether.
Absolutely horrific revelations, Craig. This article deserves a wider readership, and I will be sharing it on Facebook. It certainly does not speak well for the mental health of Charles when he counts these men as his revered and trusted mentors. Thanks for having the courage to bring these facts out into the open.
For those with the stomach for it ,the book:
Kincora: Britain’s Shame by Chris Moore
it goes into some depth into why Mi5/Mi6 ignored and encouraged this behaviour as part of an ongoing sting operation.
Despite spending £180 million on a
whitewash– ahem, i mean an inquiry – were not critical of these intelligence servicesThere was/is a documentary covering it but the BBC have pulled it.
The last sentence concerning Andrew Mountbatten Sax Coburg Windsor Whatever – recent palace press release says:
`The King’s thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.’
Which, in the light of the above concerning Kincora is complete and utter ***** (use your own expletives here).
Also,
Anthony Blunt , Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures . Was a `regular ` at Mountbattens home in Ireland ,Classiebawn Castle.,
Described as `their cherished summer retreat for decades, blending royal heritage with dramatic Irish history.
And small boys on tap.
This is a truly remarkable article. Thus far observers have castigated, and often ridiculed, Charles for being prone to the wiles of charlatans such as Van Der Post. Johann Hari’s 2002 book God Save the Queen, published around the time of the Golden Jubilee of the late citoyeness, imagined: “the old trickster chuckling at Charles’ gullibility.” – with all due apologies for lapses in a periphrasis at a range of 22 years – although celebrations for this rare event dimmed into another annus horribilis, to accompany that exactly a decade earlier, with the deaths of her mother and sister, and yet another on the occasion of her platinum jubilee with her own demise. (If you were of a religious bent, and it is not everyone who styles themselves Fidei Defensor, you might see the hand of a disapproving divinity lying behind this sequence of events.) However, this is the first time that I have seen links exposed between the royals and paedophilia :with devastating forensic acumen Craig makes it case for a rottenness in the House of Windsor. (Or Mountbatten Windsor, or Savile Windsor…)
Having observed Charles from afar all my life, I see a man who is in normal ways flawed like we are all are, but he strikes me as someone of basic decency, gentleness. and at times unusual integrity for a man in his position. The implications in this article simply don’t ring true.
So how come he attracted so many pedophiles?
A very puzzling series of gurus, I must say. In possible mitigation, HRH’s early upbringing was by all accounts a very peculiar (and loveless) one: perhaps he was a soft target for such practised chancers, frauds and weirdos.
I hold no brief for any of the four individuals mentioned but of course have heard of the first three, but in respect of van der Post, I think Mr Murray should be a little careful about calling him a (serial) paedophile. If I understand it correctly, in law paedophilia is sexual intercourse with boy and girls below the legal age for sexual consent; and it should be understood that in 1953 the legal age for sexual consent in South Africa was 14. So that could not have been an example of paedophilia, and if there was rape, then it was non-statutory rape (not that that makes it any better, of course). As far as his subsequent victims are concerned, the label of paedophile would also only be accurate (in law) if the girls concerned were under the age of sexual consent in whichever country you have in mind. Was this the case?
Finally, I agree with Mr Murry that, despite the law, there appears to have been quite a bit of tolerance in England for paedophiia – as indeed for homosexuality and an astonishing amount of it going on. Perhaps the English don’t really like children, and perhaps Mrs Edith Cresson might have been on to something…..?
A paedophile is by definition someone sexually attracted to children. A girl of 14 years is, both legally and biologically a child. The legal age of consent has no bearing whatsoever on these facts. Whatever one’s opinion on the age of consent in this case or more generally, it seems to me profoundly unhealthy that a man in his forties should enter sexual congress with a minor who had been placed in his care
I certainly agree with your last one and a half lines, Cornudet. Profoundly unhealthy and that of course also applies to the grooming gangs with which the English media and politicians have been engrossed for a good while.
But just to ask about a couple of your other points. I think the age of legal sexual consent does form the border between childhood and adulthood legally speaking. And in popular English as well: I imagine that few people would refer to 16 and 17 year olds as “children”, this is probably why the words “teenager” or “young adults” tend to be used. I also don’t understand what you mean by saying a 14 year old is “biologically” a child; you cannot mean in terms of reproduction (whether for a male or female), so in terms of which biological feature are you thinking?
Well apart from anything else he established her in an apartment in London which is where he got her pregnant, then aged 15. So legally it was paedophilia and statutory rape.
Yes, I had overlooked the UK point (age of consent 16).
His other victims, assuming in England : their ages?
Paedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, Luis. That’s not illegal under UK law. What is illegal is sexual activity with people under the age of 16 (assuming the perpetrator is aware they are underage, if they’re aged 13 or over.) There hasn’t been much tolerance in England to predatory paedophilia, but there’s been quite a lot towards predatory hebephilia (attraction to pubescent children), which is one reason why quite possibly hundreds of thousands of (mainly) girls have been raped by the ‘grooming’ gangs this past quarter century.
It would be helpful to my thinking if someone could offer a clear definition of the word paedophilia. It would be good to know what would be the name of the charge brought against someone for sexual intercourse or activity with a minor (ie under the age of 16); would the charge be of “paedophilia”, or is the word “paedophilia” merely popular usage for what you describe in your first sentence? In other words, is it an offence or a phenomenon?
Just as well you don’t drive, Craig.
Cracking piece.
“What I do not understand is why paedophilia appears so prevalent and attractive to politicians and the ruling class.”
Perhaps its easier to become a successful politician or member of the ruling class if one is a paedophile, because one can be relied on to keep schtum about everything and one has acquired a circle of similar contacts through paedophile activities. forming a kind of instant mafia.
It’s part of the power equation, IMO. Attracted to one’s own kind, domination, god/mummy complex, invincibility. I’m sure the trick cyclists could come up with a passable explanation.
Very likely true but I think also about the type of people they are. Politicians and the ruling class are very often psychopaths who can only see other humans, including children, as objects to be exploited. Active paedophilia is not just a sexual preference. It can only occur when someone has overcome the protective instinct that most people have when they look at a vulnerable child. That’s easy for psychopaths because they don’t have a conscience. No wonder there’s such an overlap between paedos and people at the top of a corrupt system.
Must be a British thing, though. I am not aware of any pedophila/political scandals in Soviet or modern Russian history, they are prone to other kind sins. As for the Americans, let’s wait in hopes they’ll release the Epstein’s files. Speaking of which, Prince Andrew comes to mind…
Nor in any other European countries I can think of, Yuri. Lots of sexual scandals, but I should say almost exclusively with grown up women (or men).
Idem, now I remember from reading, when it comes to flagellation…….which has been called, by Continentals, the “English vice”. Interesting to read how many of the clergy who have surfaced as child abusers seem to have given flogging and beating a high place in their “repertoire”.
Well done, Craig.
Of course there was not one second’s mention of this during the endless 24/7 media obsession over him in the weeks around the coronation.
I would like to know what response he gave to the security services each time they informed him that his ‘advisors’ were some of the worst criminals imaginable.
Unbelievable. Seriously.
I wonder if the whole lot of them – The Church, Royalty and powerful figures in government – are deeply connected with these evil practices. It cannot simply be a coincidence that so many of these abusers are found worldwide in such institutions.
Perhaps it’s like a mafioso “getting their bones” – this makes these institutions closely knit clubs at the higher levels, where you could only be trusted by everyone having this knowledge about each other.
When I was a lad, in the late 1970s, there was nothing publicly known and admitted about these abusers in the Church. But all of us boys knew for a fact, that Catholic priests were to be avoided at all costs. We didn’t understand why, exactly, but we knew that we really didn’t want to find out. This knowledge was simply in the form of vague warnings about something almost too terrible to spell.out, told to us, which we passed on in return. How could we have known, except for warnings provided and circulated by large numbers of other boys who had been abused themselves, and creating this cultural understanding?
https://inews.co.uk/news/andrew-summoned-us-congress-questioning-links-epstein-4027001
How many senior politicians, and royals for that matter, were seriously taken by surprise at the revelations about Epstein? How could Andrew have been indulged with his association with Epstein, so openly and for so long?
A very brave piece, Mr Murray. And very timely.
I have something to add a propos Mr Savile.
His first career was as a cyclist. He was a semi professional on the round Britain circuit leading up to the end of the Second World War (I have evidence). I have a photograph of the young Mr Savile sitting astride his cycle. Immediately behind him is a Rolls Royce motor car with a personalised number plate JS 954. The photograph would appear to be from the late 1940´s when Savile would have been 22 or 23.
How did a young man become so rich and influential?
You will know about the competition between Elizabeth, wife of George VI, and Wallis Simpson, wife of Edward VIII. Each sought to curry favour with the German dictator who must not be named. Each put forward proposals for how Britain should be ruled following the triumph of Germany. Wallis was in a strong position because the could prove that the 1937 Coronation was unlawful and invalid. The two women fought like deranged cats to get the dictator on side.
At the end of the war, when the dictator had committed suicide, there remained the problem of the correspondence. The British forces were in Berlin, along with the Allies. If the correspondence were returned through official channels it would become public and both women would be damned by their own words. So the trick was, how to get back the correspondence through unofficial Chanels during wartime conditions.
Only a young, strong fit professional cyclist would have a chance to succeed.
Enter stage left nineteen years old Jimmy Savile.
He carried out his mission with success.
Thereafter he lived a charmed life.
So, no. It was not Mountbatten that brought together Prince Charles and Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile. It was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
And that explains why the three of them (Elizabeth, Charles and Savile) spent so much time together in Glencoe at the end of the last Century (See the Daily Mail, PUBLISHED: 09:43 BST, 25 October 2012 )
Thank you, Mod.
This, slightly earlier, is my reference
https://archive.is/owOCI
Just look at those clothes. Savile is a part of the ¨Prince Charles Gang¨.
What influence would this have had on the powers that be in Glencoe?
What chance would a young person have, abused and defiled by Savile?
This sordid and appalling story just reinforces my lifelong conviction that the royals should all be rounded up and shot. It might not put and end to the elite’s sense of entitlement about everything, but there would be no scramble for royal honors and attention and titles and privileges, and the nation would acquire many extremely valuable properties and lands–which belong to the people anyway, we’ve paid for it all with centuries of exploitation and blood and serfdom.
I do in fact know, or knew, a pedophile: more than 60 years ago one of my friends at grammar school. It was fun to visit his house, he had lots of stuff (dart board, snooker table, air pistol, etc.) but there were always many little kids hanging around wearing weird expectant faces. I would tell them to go away and they did. He was an academic failure, I went to uni and we lost touch. A few years later my mother told me he’d been convicted of pedophilia. And everything fell into place.
Monarchy – something to be looked up to and admired?
Huh ….
The obvious point to make is that paedofiles seek out the famous and powerful to provide cover and protection for their behaviour. Narcism and a belief that nothing is to be denied them mean they make approaches that normal people wouldn’t. Indeed I can’t think of anything more narcisistic than approaching a Royal, Andrew or Charles, to be ones friend.
The flip side though is that Princes should be cautious.
Harriet Harman and PIE Scandal: Who Were British Establishment Paedophiles Who Were Involved? PIE was a group on a public mission to gain respectability for sexual relations with children and acceptance for the adults obsessed with child sex.
Another top public figure with links to PIE was the diplomat Sir Peter Hayman. A former British high commissioner to Canada who was also an top civil servant at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence, Hayman’s links to PIE were exposed when he left a parcel of paedophile porn on a London bus in 1978. It contained wads of diaries of explicit sexual fantasises – including killing children by sexual torture. There was also correspondence with members of PIE. For a spell in the 1970s, PIE acquired a veneer of quasi-legitimacy among the radical left, some of whose members went on to form the new establishment. But the reality was that PIE was a paedophile network for sick people to carry out sick fantasies. Its legacy is so toxic that today it dogs even people who had no part in its activities, such as Labour’s Harriet Harman.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/harriet-harman-pie-scandal-were-british-establishment-paedophiles-involved-1437900
British society was rife with it. Boarding schools were hellishly renowned for it in the 1960s,70s, 80s. And such was the relative power between abuser and abused; plus the then deeply ingrained respect for authority, it meant no accuser would ever be believed – something the Catholic Church now knows all too well about. And sadly, the abused often become abusers themselves.
I’d imagine political paedophile cover-ups, are how the security services amassed so much power and influence. If we ever have a no-holes-barred British Church Committee, all sorts of sinister blackmail activities will likely emerge from politics and the judiciary, as stones are lifted.
Spectacular. I don’t think I have ever read a better indictment against the British Royal Family and the British upper society, and I have read plenty. Spectacular