Royal News Blog

Note: This article is from the Guardian.

This article titled “Pink Floyd guitarist’s son loses appeal over protest rampage” was written by Caroline Davies, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 28th October 2011 13.00 UTC

The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, seen swinging from the Cenotaph and kicking a shop window during a drink and drug-fuelled rampage at a student fees protest, has lost his appeal against his 16-month prison sentence.

Charlie Gilmour, 21, a Cambridge University history undergraduate, who admitted violent disorder during the 9 December demonstration in London’s West End, had his challenge rejected by the court of appeal.

A three-judge panel, headed by Lord Justice Hughes, was unable to say his sentence was “arguably either manifestly excessive or wrong in principle”.

Gilmour, who was sentenced in July, was photographed hanging from a union flag on the Cenotaph, seen on CCTV launching “heavy kicks” at the window of Topshop’s flagship store in Oxford Street and helping himself to a mannequin leg, and then sitting “ostentatiously” on the bonnet of a Jaguar car, part of a royal convoy transporting Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium.

The judge at his original trial had also found Gilmour had thrown a rubbish bin at the vehicle in which the royal couple were travelling. Part of his appeal was over the evidence on which the judge made that decision.

In its ruling the court of appeal said while the face of the rubbish bin thrower was not clear in photographs of the incident, the judge had concluded he was sure it was Gilmour because “the thrower was the same build and colouring”, and had “similar long straggly hair” and was wearing “a similar [waisted] greatcoat to that worn by the defendant”.

The greatcoat was evident during an impromptu TV interview Gilmour had given on the streets that night, during which “he was still carrying the mannequin part, albeit he tried to tuck it under his greatcoat”, said Hughes. The trial judge was entitled to come to the conclusion it was Gilmour, he said.

Gilmour had turned to drink and drugs after being rejected by his biological father, writer Heathcote Williams, and had taken LSD and Valium in the hours leading up to the violence, his original trial at Kingston crown court was told.

Rejecting his appeal, Hughes said there was serious mob disorder on 9 December, with “mass attacks on shops” and “hapless” shoppers and staff “besieged inside” as a large group moved up Whitehall to Oxford Street.

In Regent Street, the windows of the royal couple’s car and their escort vehicles were smashed, wing mirrors and wipers “wrenched off” and paint and other objects including bottles were thrown and them.

The judges agreed at times in the day Gimour was “clearly in good, if intoxicated humour”. He was seen shouting good-humouredly and at another point declaiming poetry.

But his behaviour was not always in this benevolent category, said Hughes.

He was photographed in Parliament Square “hefting a lump of rock” and had “crouched down in the doorway of the nearby supreme court and tried to set fire to a bundle of newspapers against the wooden doors” but was dissuaded and “scampered away”.

“A little later he was to be found swinging in an exhibitionist manner and for quite a prolonged period on one of the flags on the Cenotaph,” which “unsurprisingly subsequently attracted a good deal of attention”.

“Deeply offensive as it undoubtedly was” it did not amount to violence, said the judges, but did demonstrate he was at times “over-excited, out of control and raising the temperature in a manner which could only be dangerous in the context of a large and angry crowd”.

Hughes said Gilmour was “plainly a talented man” and references from people described him as a person “generally of gentle and peaceable disposition”. He was “much chastened” by what he had done, and had made “genuine efforts to stop drinking and taking drugs”.

But, added Hughes, “we do not believe that violence in this context and of the kind displayed by this defendant can normally be met by other than significant sentences of immediate custody even for those of otherwise good character”.

The sentence passed was a “penalty which properly met the facts of this case”.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Note: This article is from the Guardian.

This article titled “Prince Charles will take official artist on Africa tour” was written by Stephen Bates, for The Guardian on Thursday 13th October 2011 17.05 UTC

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will have a retinue of at least 15 for their eight-day tour of South Africa and Tanzania next month, including an official artist, Clarence House has disclosed.

The 16,000-mile round trip, which for the prince includes brief stops in Kuwait and Qatar, will be undertaken in a royal-chartered Airbus. The royal couple will meet neither the South African president, Jacob Zuma, nor Nelson Mandela – who at 93 is described as too frail to meet visitors, although he made an exception for Michelle Obama recently.

The prince is paying for his wife to travel by scheduled flight to Johannesburg to meet him when he arrives on 2 November. He will also pay the travel costs of the unnamed artist.

Clarence House refused to identify the young artist “for his own protection from the media, because he is very nervous”, although his identity will presumably become obvious as the visit gets under way.

Previous artists on earlier trips have included Neale Worley and James Hart Dyke. Their works were described by a Clarence House spokesman as the prince’s legacy contribution to the Royal Collection, alongside the Rembrandts, Vermeers, Van Dycks and Winterhalters.

“He has decided his contribution will be paintings by up-and-coming British artists. The latest has already been chosen by the prince’s art adviser,” the spokesman said. The artist has yet to receive his pre-tour briefing on such matters as how to address the prince.

Hart Dyke, one of whose pictures was entitled Gorr Mildred, It’s That Royalty Lot after a remark he overheard, told the Guardian in an interview three years ago: “You do see some amazing things … [and then] you get back to Heathrow and the prince goes off in his car to Clarence House and I get the tube home and think: ‘Was that all a dream?’”

Also in the entourage of private secretaries, press officers, a personal assistant and equerry is a logistics manager and personal staff including a butler, valet, dresser, hairdresser and doctor.

The official part of the visit, arranged at the request of the government, will include trips to township projects, game reserves and gardens and visits in Zanzibar and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, aimed at securing “crucial partnerships and powerful relationships” with the countries.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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