Royal protection officers “live in fear of losing their pensions” if they leak stories to the press, an expert has claimed. Daily Express royal correspondent Richard Palmer told the publication’s Royal Round Up podcast that in the 1980s and 90s Buckingham Palace didn’t pay well so staff would sell stories to newspapers to supplement their income.
Royal protection officers act as bodyguards to certain members of the Royal Family and have years of experience as senior police officers trained in unarmed combat and firearms.
Mr Palmer recalled a conversation with a press secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth II who told him the palace had clamped down on the kind of leaks and briefings from one royal against another seen in the 1990s.
For part of that decade, a war of words reportedly existed between Princess Diana and Charles, the then Prince of Wales, as their relationship continued to deteriorate.
Sources close to Charles allegedly conducted a smear campaign against the late Princess of Wales, according to a claim made by Patrick Jephson, who was Diana’s private secretary between 1988 and 1996.
The royal reporter made the revelations during a discussion about Elizabeth II’s former personal assistant, Angela Kelly, who reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement with the palace.
It has been claimed King Charles gifted Ms Kelly a home in return for her keeping silent about her relationship with the late monarch and Royal Household.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams has claimed Charles regarded some photos used in Ms Kelly’s books as inappropriate and wanted to avoid further revelations coming out about her relationship with the Queen.
Asked by podcast host Pandora Forsyth why Ms Kelly couldn’t have been offered another role, Mr Palmer said: “Well, possibly, I don’t know. But the other element is that she’s got children and grandchildren in the north of England and my understanding is she wanted to spend more time with them.”
He went on to recount a story published by a Sunday newspaper which speculated Ms Kelly might be forced out.
Mr Palmer said he then wrote a story saying she was going to leave the palace’s employment, but she had not been forced out.
The royal reporter added: “The key thing, I was told, was that she could have stayed in Windsor. She could have stayed in that house in Windsor that she’s had. Having retired, she could have had it for the rest of her life. So she wasn’t forced out of her home.”
Removal vans pitched up outside Ms Kelly’s Windsor home in May and the former monarch’s senior dresser looked emotional as her belongings were ushered out of the property.
The former personal assistant is believed to have moved to the Peak District where King Charles has reportedly gifted her a new home to honour his late mother’s promise to keep a roof over her head.
Her new home was reportedly bought by King Charles on the understanding it will revert back to the Crown after Ms Kelly’s death.
News Ms Kelly would leave her home emerged in April in a social media post.
The designer posted a picture of her garden, writing: “Getting ready to say goodbye. I am moving at last to my new home which I will be able to call My Home at last.”
In reply to a friend, Ms Kelly wrote she would be moving to the Peak District, that her new home was “not too far away from the family” and she was “looking forward to New Adventures”.
