Eleven holders of top honours are being stripped of their awards for bringing the system into disrepute, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The biggest single instance of honours being forfeited in modern times includes a former aide to David Cameron losing his OBE after being convicted for downloading indecent images of children.
Among the others are a vet with an MBE who was convicted of animal cruelty, and a servant of the Queen jailed for taking bribes for Buckingham Palace contracts.
Philippa Rodale received an MBE for services to veterinary medicine in 2007. But in 2015 she was arrested on animal cruelty charges after an RSPCA investigation. She was found guilty and fined for ignoring a dog with a broken back for ten days. She was attempting a homeopathic cure and didn’t take an x-ray. She was struck off as a vet for life.
Craig Burrows was awarded an MBE in 2004 for charity work as a missionary priest in the Philippines. He was forced to return to Britain in 2015 to answer allegations of sex abuse from the 1980s. He was found guilty of assaulting two young girls staying with him and his then wife for five years. He claimed the charges were invented by his wife, whom he later divorced.
Patrick Rock was a Conservative activist and Parliamentary candidate from the late 1970s onwards. He was given an OBE for political service in 1992. In 2011 David Cameron brought him into No 10 as Deputy Director of Policy. He was charged with making indecent images of children in 2014. He received a two-year conditional discharge in June last year.
The mass forfeiture raises further concerns about the honours system and the need for thorough checks on those given official awards. Veteran Labour MP Paul Flynn last night called the entire system ‘dishonoured’.
There have been widespread calls for tycoon Sir Philip Green to be stripped of his knighthood after he sold department store chain BHS with a pensions deficit of £571 million, but the Government has resisted the demands.
Previous casualties include entertainer Rolf Harris, who lost his CBE after being convicted of indecent assault on teenage girls, and Anthony Blunt, the Queen’s art expert who was stripped of his knighthood in 1979 after he admitted being a Soviet spy.
The decision to strip the 11 of their awards was made by the Honours Forfeiture Committee, which is made up of senior Government mandarins and lawyers. The Queen then gives her approval. There is no right of appeal.
The news will not have been a surprise for many on the list, with some having spent time in prison and others still serving sentences.
Patrick Rock, who was a policy chief for David Cameron when he was Prime Minister, was given a two-year conditional discharge last summer after being found guilty of five counts of downloading indecent images of young girls.
The damning reasons for annulments usually emerge long after the honours had been given. But shockingly, Falklands veteran Adrian Stone was awarded an MBE a month after being charged for sex assaults on children. He was later jailed.
Ex-headmaster, Stanley Poots, received his MBE in 2011 for services to education. It was later discovered he was siphoning money from his school. He received an 18-month suspended prison sentence in March 2016.
The RAF chef Robert Constable was awarded an MBE for long service in 1975. Last September it emerged he had assaulted four schoolgirls over more than 20 years. He admitted 23 charges. He was jailed for 13 and a half years.
RAF chef Robert Constable was stripped of an MBE for long service. Last year he was jailed after he admitted assaulting schoolgirls.
The roll call of disgrace also includes Ronald Harper, a former property manager to the Queen – he was found to be skimming money from contracts. Mr Harper was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order – given at the discretion of the Queen – in 2004.
Former headmaster Stanley Poots, who received an MBE in 2011 after being praised for running a primary school in Northern Ireland, was later found to be siphoning funds.
Philippa Rodale, a vet given an MBE for services to animal medicine, lost her award almost two years after leaving a dog with a broken back to die.
The Queen’s deputy property manager Ronald Harper was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 2004. Found guilty last year of taking more than £100,000 in bribes to award contracts and jailed for five years.
The Staff Sergeant, Adrian Stone, who had fought in the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia, received an MBE in 2012, just a month after being charged with sexually assaulting a child on a military base. He was jailed for 40 months
Craig Burrows was awarded an MBE in 2004 for charity work in the Philippines while working as a missionary priest. He was later found guilty of assaulting two young girls. Another churchman lost his OBE after being forced into retirement following allegations of abuse.
Mr Flynn, the MP for Newport West, said: ‘The honours system does some good for the unsung heroes, but cases like this show it is an embarrassment.
‘The system is dishonoured and we are best starting again.’ Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda and author of the book Entitled, a critical history of the British aristocracy, said: ‘It seems that people get honours for political service, and not for more important services to their community.
‘Our attachment to the British Empire in our awards is very strange and it’s odd to give people these things in the modern era. Other countries have managed to update themselves but Britain has not. The whole system needs reshaping.’
The Cabinet Office declined to comment.