Prince Charles continues to take good care of his controversial former valet, Michael Fawcett (pictured) as he enjoyed just over £276,000 flowing in to his company from the Prince’s charities
Prince Charles may be stepping back from some of his charitable work as he approaches 70, but he continues to take good care of his controversial former valet, Michael Fawcett.
I can reveal that Fawcett — who proved so indispensable to Charles that he is said to have squeezed the royal toothpaste on to HRH’s brush — enjoyed just over £276,000 flowing in to his company from the Prince’s charities.
The Dumfries House Trust, which runs the Scottish stately home Charles ‘saved for the nation’ in 2007, paid Fawcett’s business, Premier Mode Limited, £276,158 in the financial year ending last March.
Newly published accounts disclose that the heir to the throne used £90,000 from his Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation to cover the cost of Fawcett’s £85,000-per-year salary as executive director of Dumfries House.
Charles uses the 18th-century Palladian pile in Ayrshire to wine and dine wealthy donors to his numerous charities.
As well as Fawcett’s generous salary, Dumfries paid his company £72,000 for ‘consultancy services’ and £119,158 for ‘event delivery’.
Cash was even found for Fawcett’s son Oliver — his firm was paid £1,770 for producing a short film ‘covering live build events on the [Dumfries] estate during the year’. Last year, a courtier told me: ‘Michael is probably the most influential person in the Prince’s life — and that includes the Duchess of Cornwall.’
At the time, Fawcett had just been appointed as a director of Charles’s company, A. G. Carrick Ltd, which the Prince set up to sell goods at his Highgrove shops.
![Newly published accounts disclose that the heir to the throne used £90,000 from his Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation to cover the cost of Fawcett’s £85,000-per-year salary as executive director of Dumfries House](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/01/23/05A40B81000003E8-5227213-image-a-16_1514849582355.jpg)
Newly published accounts disclose that the heir to the throne used £90,000 from his Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation to cover the cost of Fawcett’s £85,000-per-year salary as executive director of Dumfries House
This newspaper revealed in 2016 that businessmen had been asked to pay up to £100,000 each to be entertained by Charles at an event in aid of Dumfries House.
The Prince’s office said the letter sent to donors demanding cash to attend one of Charles’s charity functions had been ‘erroneously’ sent out by a ‘third party’ without their knowledge and steps were immediately taken to ensure that it never happened again.
Fawcett, now 55, resigned not once but twice from the Royal Household. In 1998, when a number of the Prince’s staff complained to Charles of Fawcett’s bullying attitude, he duly resigned.
But within a week, he was not only reinstated, but promoted.
Then, in 2003, he was forced out as a senior valet when an inquiry found he had sold off gifts on Charles’s orders. However, he was retained as a highly paid ‘consultant’.
A spokesman for Dumfries House Trust said that a ‘significant portion’ of the payments went to ‘third-party suppliers of services, such as catering and equipment hire, rather than to any one individual’.
![Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's fashion label, Desiderata London, has been closed down by her sister Santa Montefiore](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/01/23/032C8C79000007D0-5227213-image-a-18_1514849938280.jpg)
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s fashion label, Desiderata London, has been closed down by her sister Santa Montefiore
TARA PALMER-TOMKINSON’S FASHION LABEL IS CLOSED DOWN
A sad postscript to the life of irrepressible Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, who died last February aged 45 after suffering a perforated ulcer.
The socialite’s novelist sister, Santa Montefiore, has formally closed down Tara’s fashion label, Desiderata London. Santa has applied to Companies House to have the business struck off its register.
Tara set up Desiderata, whose name means ‘desired things’ in Latin, with typical enthusiasm, but it racked up huge losses of £418,989 in its final year of trading.
It sold the Kubbi, a hybrid of a man’s shirt and a leotard, designed by Tara. ‘It’s very sad for everyone involved,’ said Santa. ‘Tara was the creative force behind it, but now she is gone. I could never replace her.’
TV chef Michel Roux Jr took over top Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche from his father and uncle in 1991, but his daughter, Emily, 25, won’t be next in line.
‘I don’t feel I’d be right for it,’ she admits.
‘My style is different, and there are people who have worked there for 25 years and who saw me running around the kitchen as a six-year-old. It would be a difficult dynamic.’
JOCKEY LOSES HIS CAR IN LIVERPOOL BLAZE
Former jockey Bob Champion was at the Liverpool International Horse Show on New Year’s Eve when it was abruptly ended by the devastating fire in a nearby car park.
Champion’s new £23,250 VW Tiguan was among some 1,600 cars destroyed in the multi-storey next to the Echo Arena. ‘It was like a war zone,’ he tells me. ‘Explosion after explosion. The firemen did a wonderful job containing it.’
The 69-year-old, whose 1981 Grand National win was immortalised in the film Champions, starring John Hurt, didn’t enjoy being trapped in his hotel: ‘New Year’s Eve TV was desperate.’
One of London’s most famous — and expensive — interior designers, Nicky Haslam managed to persuade friends to pay to hear him perform musical cabaret.
Now, the cheeky Old Etonian, 78, has asked them to cough up for his new publishing effort, Good Taste: A Decorator’s Cookbook, before he’s even written it.
‘I’ve gone down the “crowd-funding” route because I want to publish it quickly,’ Haslam tells me. ‘These recipes will be from my famous friends.’
EDITED BY RICHARD EDEN