UK News
Trial over blackmail plot involving British royal opens
Apr 15, 2008, 13:47 GMT
London - Two men went on trial in Britain Tuesday charged with blackmailing a member of the royal family with an audio recording featuring claims that he had performed a gay sex act.
The two men deny they made 'unwarranted demands' of up to 50,000 pounds (100,000 dollars) from the unidentified junior royal, known in court as Witness A.
The alleged victim, who is married with children, has been questioned by police but denied all the allegations made in the video.
The Crown Prosecution Service has blocked moves to require the royal at the centre of the allegations having to appear at the Old Bailey trial, scheduled to last three weeks.
When the two men were arrested last September, the identity of the royal was published on American television and the internet, a move that had 'hugely damaged' the victim, the court heard.
It is the first blackmail case involving a member of the royal family in more than a century.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley (born 3 November 1961), known professionally as David Linley, is a member of the British Royal Family, the son of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, thirteenth in the line of succession to the British Throne and heir to the Earldom of Snowdon..
Blackmail allegation
Main article: 2007 Royal blackmail plot
In October 2007, Viscount Linley was the victim of an alleged blackmail attempt. Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan were charged with demanding money with menaces after they attempted to extort £50,000 to prevent release of a video that they made of an aide claiming that he had had oral sex with a member of the Royal family and a male Member of Parliament. The aide is also allegedly seen on a video tape taking cocaine from an envelope embossed with his employer's name.
The scam was exposed when a detective, posing as a royal aide, met the two men in a London hotel on 11 September. They pleaded not guilty at the pre-trial hearing on 20 December 2007; the trial is timetabled to begin on 14 April 2008.
[edit] Ancestry
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JockApr 15th, 2008 - 16:45:06
When is 'witness A' - a member of the Linley family giving evidence? Apparently he isn't. Why are the Windsor dynasty protected from the realities of life like this? Personally, I think that if the person against whom the alleged crime isn't called to give evidence then the two accused should be aquitted.
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