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October 4, 2007

William and Harry tutor gets ‘substantial’ damages from Daily Mirror

By Roger Pearson

An Army Major General said to have quit his job as head of Sandhurst because of the stress of caring for and training Princes William and Harry received ‘substantial’but undisclosed libel damages at London’s High Court today.

The agreed damages are to be paid by MGN Ltd in respect of an article in the Daily Mirror which carried the allegations in the in April last year.

Today solicitor Gerrard Tyrrell for Maj Gen Andrew Ritchie told Mr Justice David Eady that the paper had accepted the allegations were false and apologised. He said they had also agreed to pay damages and ‘a large proportion of his legal costs.”

He told the judge : ‘The claimant had neither quit his job at Sandhurst and nor had he been suffering from stress. The claimant in fact held the post of Commandant at Sandhurst for some 40 months, which is the longest period in charge for any commandant for some 20 years.”

He said the Army’s senior appointments board had made the decision to appoint a successor to Maj Gen Ritchie in accordance with the normal procedure for planning of the succession of senior positions in the army.

The Mag Gen resigned to take up a post as Director of Goodenough College he said and continued : ‘His reasons for leaving the army had nothing to do with stress, or to do with either of the two princes. The artic le was seriously defamatory of the claimant in that he is a highly trained soldier who prides himself not unnaturally upon his professionalism. He has been trained to deal with stress and has a proven ability to deal with farm more stressful events than running Sandhurst.”

Blinne Ni Ghralaigh counsel for MGN told the court they acknowledged that the allegations were untrue and apologised for the distress, embarrassment and injury they caused.

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