Middleton’s father-in-law on 1990s rape charge
FRANCE: David Matthews, the father-in-law of Duchess Kate’s sister Pippa Middleton, was arrested by French police earlier last week and charged with the rape of a minor in the late 1990s, the Agence France Press wire service and British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
According to those two outlets, Matthews, 74, was taken into custody on Wednesday at Paris’ Orly Airport and questioned by officers from the Protection of Minors Brigade.
A Parisian judicial official confirmed his arrest to The Telegraph.
On Friday, the Paris prosecutor opened an investigation and a magistrate charged Matthews with raping a female minor.
The official who spoke to The Telegraph said Matthews’ alleged crimes were committed in 1998 and 1999. The newspaper reported that he ‘‘strenuously denied the allegations.’’
‘‘The investigations will now continue as a judicial investigation and will be led by an investigating judge,’’ the official told The Telegraph, adding that he has been released from custody and has not been ordered to remain in France.
Who is David Matthews? The son of a coal miner, Matthews worked his way up from mechanic to racecar driver. After a horrific crash at Britain’s Silverstone track in 1973, he retired and poured his efforts into his car dealership, which he sold in 1991 in favor of property development.
He then bought and rehabbed the Eden Roc hotel on the Carribean island of St Barths, eventually building it into a glitzy, celeb-friendly haunt. However, the resort suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Irma in September 2017.
He and his second wife, the Zimbabwe-born Jane Parker (whom he married in the 1970s), divide their time between their two British estates: Caunton Manor, a 12ha spread in Nottinghamshire, and Glen Affric, a 40,000ha estate in Scotland.
Their eldest son James, 42, followed David into the race car business before moving into securities trading. He married Middleton, 34, in a lavish May 2017 ceremony attended by her older sister, the Duchess Kate of Cambridge and her husband, Prince William, his brother Prince Harry and his future fiance´e, American actress Meghan Markle, who attended the reception. Will and Kate’s children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, served as a page boy and flower girl in the ceremony.
The Matthews’ middle son, Michael, a derivatives trader, died at age 22 while descending M. Everest in 1999, after becoming the youngest Briton to summit the world’s highest peak. The Matthews family created an education foundation in his memory.
Youngest son Spencer, 28, is a reality TV star whose credits include Made in Chelsea, The Bachelor and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! - USA Today