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American Morning

A Royal Mess

Aired November 13, 2002 - 08:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Queen Elizabeth appeared in parliament this morning and made no mention of the scandal engulfing the royal. No one expected her to. Allegations of a rape came to light after Princess Diana's Butler spilled palace secrets to a British tabloid. Joining us from London with more on the scandal is Sir Trevor McDonald, a television news anchor who has interviewed Burrell.
Welcome, glad have you with us, sir.

SIR TREVOR MCDONALD, ITV NEWS ANCHOR: It's a great pleasure.

ZAHN: Our pleasure as well.

Brings us up-to-date on any talk about an inquiry into this alleged rape.

MCDONALD: Well, yesterday, the Buckingham Palace moved to try to staunch this flow of allegations which seemed to be swamping not only the palace, but Swamping London these days. What they proposed is an inquiry, which would be an internal inquiry headed by Prince Charles' private secretary, but with another top leading lawyer. And the idea is to try to draw a line under all of this, to try to stop this flow of allegations, at least for a time, while the inquiry is taking place.

But so far, it does not appear that this is good enough. Because some members of Mr. Blair's Party, the Labor Party, are now saying there should be an independent inquiry, in other words, one which does not involve people in the palace to look into these matters and to report pretty quickly. And so the palace is trying to draw a line under it, the royals are trying to draw a line under it, and some people are still not satisfied.

ZAHN: What is the palace most worried about here? The stuff has become public. They are saying Queen Elizabeth allowed for the trial to be ended right before Paul Burrell took the stand, but the stuff came out anyway.

MCDONALD: Well, there is a great deal of speculation about this. There is a feeling that perhaps or some speculation that one of the reasons that the queen intervened was to stop the trial, to stop the flow of other allegations which might be made public. But as you said, they've come out in the open anyway.

Buckingham Palace strongly denies this, and to be honest, there is no evidence that was her motive. The queen heard about this trial at that time, remembered that she had had this conversation with Paul Burrell about some of the items that he had, and decided to make that information known to the police. It happened through Prince Charles' office.

But the other allegations, as you said in your introduction, about sexual assaults, and a rather nasty one about somebody in Prince Charles' office selling off bits of gifts that he had received, or that Prince Charles had received, and taking a cut in the proceeds. So all of this really needs to be investigated.

I think that the Prince Charles' office has really moved very, very quickly to try, as I said, to stop these allegations getting out there.

ZAHN: What kind of a hit is Prince Charles taking in all of this in terms of public perceptions? First of all, you have got allegations of a cover-up, and now this, which some people consider very shameful behavior that he would sell gifts that were given to him.

MCDONALD: Well, I'm sure that this has been strongly denied by Prince Charles' palace of St. James' Palace, which is where Prince Charles' office is. But on your question, obviously, he does not come out of it too well and this is why I suppose the inquiry has been mounted.

Prince Charles, since the death of Diana, has been trying to form, if you like, to present himself now as somebody who is freed of the burden of this marriage that didn't work and freed of the overwhelming presence of this lady who was universally loved. And he was beginning, for example, to get his partner, Mrs. Camilla Parker- Bowles, more into the public spotlight. And there is a lot of speculation here that all of this now has to be put on hold until these matters are cleared up.

So he's not coming out of it too well. But this is why, I think, this inquiry has been so very quickly. And if I may say so, it's a quite unprecedented thing for an inquiry like this to be put out by the palace itself.

Normally, Buckingham Palace likes to leave these things around and think eventually we'd all get tired of it, we'll stop talking about it, and we'll forget it. This time, they have decided that that is not the case, and they want to do something about it.

ZAHN: Sir Trevor, we just have 10 seconds left. A final thought on what this potentially means for the credibility of the monarchy.

MCDONALD: Well, I think the queen comes out of it still as somebody who is widely respected, but I think there are problems for other members of the royal family, and that's why the inquiry has been called.

ZAHN: Sir Trevor McDonald, thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Love to have you back.

MCDONALD: It's a pleasure. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 13, 2002 - 08:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Queen Elizabeth appeared in parliament this morning and made no mention of the scandal engulfing the royal. No one expected her to. Allegations of a rape came to light after Princess Diana's Butler spilled palace secrets to a British tabloid. Joining us from London with more on the scandal is Sir Trevor McDonald, a television news anchor who has interviewed Burrell.
Welcome, glad have you with us, sir.

SIR TREVOR MCDONALD, ITV NEWS ANCHOR: It's a great pleasure.

ZAHN: Our pleasure as well.

Brings us up-to-date on any talk about an inquiry into this alleged rape.

MCDONALD: Well, yesterday, the Buckingham Palace moved to try to staunch this flow of allegations which seemed to be swamping not only the palace, but Swamping London these days. What they proposed is an inquiry, which would be an internal inquiry headed by Prince Charles' private secretary, but with another top leading lawyer. And the idea is to try to draw a line under all of this, to try to stop this flow of allegations, at least for a time, while the inquiry is taking place.

But so far, it does not appear that this is good enough. Because some members of Mr. Blair's Party, the Labor Party, are now saying there should be an independent inquiry, in other words, one which does not involve people in the palace to look into these matters and to report pretty quickly. And so the palace is trying to draw a line under it, the royals are trying to draw a line under it, and some people are still not satisfied.

ZAHN: What is the palace most worried about here? The stuff has become public. They are saying Queen Elizabeth allowed for the trial to be ended right before Paul Burrell took the stand, but the stuff came out anyway.

MCDONALD: Well, there is a great deal of speculation about this. There is a feeling that perhaps or some speculation that one of the reasons that the queen intervened was to stop the trial, to stop the flow of other allegations which might be made public. But as you said, they've come out in the open anyway.

Buckingham Palace strongly denies this, and to be honest, there is no evidence that was her motive. The queen heard about this trial at that time, remembered that she had had this conversation with Paul Burrell about some of the items that he had, and decided to make that information known to the police. It happened through Prince Charles' office.

But the other allegations, as you said in your introduction, about sexual assaults, and a rather nasty one about somebody in Prince Charles' office selling off bits of gifts that he had received, or that Prince Charles had received, and taking a cut in the proceeds. So all of this really needs to be investigated.

I think that the Prince Charles' office has really moved very, very quickly to try, as I said, to stop these allegations getting out there.

ZAHN: What kind of a hit is Prince Charles taking in all of this in terms of public perceptions? First of all, you have got allegations of a cover-up, and now this, which some people consider very shameful behavior that he would sell gifts that were given to him.

MCDONALD: Well, I'm sure that this has been strongly denied by Prince Charles' palace of St. James' Palace, which is where Prince Charles' office is. But on your question, obviously, he does not come out of it too well and this is why I suppose the inquiry has been mounted.

Prince Charles, since the death of Diana, has been trying to form, if you like, to present himself now as somebody who is freed of the burden of this marriage that didn't work and freed of the overwhelming presence of this lady who was universally loved. And he was beginning, for example, to get his partner, Mrs. Camilla Parker- Bowles, more into the public spotlight. And there is a lot of speculation here that all of this now has to be put on hold until these matters are cleared up.

So he's not coming out of it too well. But this is why, I think, this inquiry has been so very quickly. And if I may say so, it's a quite unprecedented thing for an inquiry like this to be put out by the palace itself.

Normally, Buckingham Palace likes to leave these things around and think eventually we'd all get tired of it, we'll stop talking about it, and we'll forget it. This time, they have decided that that is not the case, and they want to do something about it.

ZAHN: Sir Trevor, we just have 10 seconds left. A final thought on what this potentially means for the credibility of the monarchy.

MCDONALD: Well, I think the queen comes out of it still as somebody who is widely respected, but I think there are problems for other members of the royal family, and that's why the inquiry has been called.

ZAHN: Sir Trevor McDonald, thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Love to have you back.

MCDONALD: It's a pleasure. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com