Nov 14, 2003  |  By: BRYAN ANDERTON  | COMMENTS     

LONDON — In what is arguably the oddest scandal to hit the British royal family in recent years, Prince Charles has denied allegations that he and a male aide were discovered in bed together by a former butler.

That such salacious rumors would be the subject of tabloid fodder is not unusual, considering the British media’s appetite for royal gossip. What makes the case especially strange is that nearly all major news outlets in Britain and elsewhere have refused to print the allegations for fear of being punished under Britain’s strict libel laws.

That extends to many notable American news outlets, including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. In fact, the New York Times posted a dispatch from one of its London-based reporters on its Web site last Friday, stating the details of the rumor. Within 20 minutes, the story had been taken off the site.

The concern about repeating the rumors stems from Britain’s libel laws, which are much tougher than those in America and extend to foreign-based newspapers that publish in England as well.

“It’s quite different [than in America] because in England, libel can be a strict liability, which means even if it’s an honest mistake or an understandable error, the publisher can still be held liable for that,” said Dave Heller, a staff attorney at the Media Law Research Center in New York. “Also what is quite significant is that in English libel law, the plaintiff’s good reputation is always assumed, so the burden is on the defendant to prove that what they said was true. It’s completely the reverse in the United States.”

Denying a rumor no one can talk about
The scandal broke nearly two weeks ago when the brother of former Buckingham Palace valet George Smith publicly claimed in an interview with the Daily Mirror that his brother had witnessed a member of the royal family “tucked up” in bed with a servant one morning as he was delivering breakfast. Neither the royal family member nor the servant — Charles’ longtime personal aide Michael Fawcett — were named.

“When George knocked and opened the door of one member of the royal family, he said he almost froze in shock at the sight before him,” Bryan Smith, George Smith’s brother, told the Mirror in an article published Nov. 2. “He said it was completely surreal. The royal and the servant were tucked up under the sheets, lying next to each other.”

The Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper, was ready to publish a story chronicling the allegations in full detail, naming the royal and the servant involved, until Fawcett obtained a legal injunction against the paper to prevent it from running the story. The injunction effectively banned all media outlets that broadcast or publish in Britain from publicizing details of the story.

The legal maneuver was highly unusual, Heller said.

“It’s quite rare to get a pre-publication injunction in a libel claim in English law. … Normally the English law frowns on prior restraint,” Heller said. “So out of fear of being held liable for repeating the same statements, media companies would not publish the exact allegation that was at issue, but instead would hint at it in indirect ways.”

Making matters more bizarre, both Prince Charles and his staff last week denied that the rumors were true, without giving any hints as to what rumors they were denying.

“I agree it is rather unusual to make a statement about an unspecified allegation,” Sir Michael Peat, the prince’s secretary, said in a television interview last week. “However, this allegation is becoming common currency, it is the subject of much speculation and innuendo, and I just want to make it entirely clear, even though I can’t refer to the specifics of the allegation, that it is totally untrue and without a shred of substance.”

Some have said that the intense attention the story has received and the prince’s unusual public denial are due to the fact that it was a man that Charles was supposedly found in bed with.

But Michael Young, northeastern regional media manager for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said the speculation behind the rumors probably had little to do with the gay aspects of the allegations.

“At this point, there aren’t any confirmed details,” Young said. “We would hope that when there is something concrete that the media would cover it responsibly and not sensationalize it.”

Critics skeptical of story
By Sunday, a few brazen foreign newspapers — including some Irish and Scottish papers ...