The Sun's veteran royal photographer Arthur Edwards has warned in a BBC interview that Prince Harry is in danger of becoming an "embarrassment to the country".
Speaking to Stephen Sackur on BBC News 24's Hard Talk programme on Wednesday evening, Edwards talked of the various photographs appearing in the press of the prince staggering out of nightclubs in a drunken stupor.
Edwards said: "I think Prince Harry is dangerously becoming an embarrassment to this country. I think he's a fabulous young man, but he's an army officer now and that behaviour last week when he staggers out, falling over outside nightclubs, trying to attack a photographer — if he'd have hit that photographer we could have been all outside Horseferry Road magistrates' court last week, seeing him face a charge of assault.
"This young man is no longer a boy — he's not 18, he's 22. He should be behaving a lot better and he knows that if he goes to these nightclubs, paparazzi hang around. It's par for the course. Like outside Paris hotels there are paparazzi. Princess Diana knew that."
When Sackur pushed Edwards on the issue of the prince being an embarrassment, Edwards replied: "The one thing about the royal family that I've always admired, even in the darkest times, is that they act with dignity. They look straight in your face.
"They might not be happy. They might be feeling really miserable inside. Certainly I remember the Duchess of York feeling like that in some of her darkest moments. But she never behaved other than with dignity and I think that's what we've got to get back into Prince Harry, a little bit more about who he is."
Edwards has recently given evidence to the Culture Select Committee on privacy, press intrusion, and self-regulation.
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