Diana, not Charles, was first to stray, says ex-aide
VIEWERS of Netflix hit The Crown are left in no doubt who was to blame for the collapse of Prince Charles and Diana’s marriage: he’s shown sneaking off to renew his love affair with Camilla Parker Bowles while the Princess is left crying at the Palace.
Now, however, one of the couple’s former royal protection officers has come forward to present a startlingly different version of events.
Allan Peters claims Charles did not start seeing Camilla romantically again (they had first met in their early 20s) until after he
discovered Diana had been having a fling with fellow protection officer Barry Mannakee.
And Peters was the one who informed Charles of his wife’s affair.
‘The popular perception is that the Prince of Wales was straying all the way through his marriage — and that is definitely, unequivocally, not the case,’ insists Peters, who worked for Diana for almost a decade.
‘The first person that strayed was the Princess. He went back to see Mrs Parker Bowles after he learned about her affair with Mannakee.’
THIS backs up Jonathan Dimbleby’s version of events. In his authorised biography of Charles, published in 1994, Dimbleby stated that Charles and Camilla renewed acquaintances in 1986.
Mannakee had started protecting Diana in 1985. Their affair is said to have begun during a fishing expedition at Balmoral that year.
In 1986, he was transferred from his royal role to the Diplomatic Protection Squad. A year later, Mannakee, then 39, was killed in a mysterious road accident. He was reported to have been struck by a 17year-old driver while riding on a motorbike in East London, leading Diana to suggest he’d been ‘bumped off’.
Speaking in a new CNN documentary, Peters says of Diana: ‘I started to notice her behaviour was unusual whenever we were anywhere near Mannakee, so I decided to talk to her about it.
‘For the first 20 minutes, she categorically denied it. But then she told me exactly what was going on: she was having some sort of relationship with Mannakee.
‘The Prince of Wales approached me and said: “Why is the Princess behaving in the way she is? What on earth is the matter?”
‘So I said: “You’ve got to talk to her.” And he said: “Well, I’ve tried all that, and the only thing that seems to be upsetting her is that Barry Mannakee is going back to uniform. And, if she’s that upset, Barry can stay.”
‘At that stage, I was forced to say: “Well, Sir, if he stays, then I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.” And, I think, at that point the penny dropped. He was utterly shocked and was clearly very upset.’
Peters adds of the finger-pointing of blame: ‘Nobody is the villain. In my view, everyone is the victim. [Charles] was under a lot of pressure to get married and she, too, was the victim of this whole process.’