Camilla cousin locked up for ‘sophisticated’ benefits scam

A COUSIN of the Duchess of Cornwall was jailed yesterday for a ‘significant and sophisticated’ series of benefit frauds.

Aristocrat Dru Edmonstone embezzled £60,000 from the state, Stirling Council and the Royal Burgh of Kensington and Chelsea.

He fraudulently used the names of his sister, his ex-wife, a former housekeeper, and an employee of his father to submit bogus claims for income support, tax credits, carers’ allowance and disability living allowance. Edmonstone, pictured, also fraudulently claimed thousands of pounds in housing benefit.

Between January 2014 and April 2017 he pocketed £60,000, channelling the money into high-risk spread-betting.

At an earlier hearing, Edmonstone, 46, who lives on the 6,000-acre Ardoch House Estate in Blanefield, Stirlingshire, pleaded guilty to a string of benefit frauds.

He had initially denied the crimes but as the evidence against him mounted, he began to display ‘bizarre and inexplicable’ behaviour.

His lawyer obtained a psychiatric report, but having read it, said he did not ‘intend to submit that any condition my client suffers from materially contributed to his conduct in the commission of these charges’.

When the former financier returned to Stirling Sheriff Court yesterday, he was jailed for 21 months.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson rejected suggestions that Edmonstone’s crimes were the result of a psychiatric condition.

He said a report by a psychiatrist revealed ‘a long history of deception and fraud’, including altering GPs’ prescriptions and fabricating evidence to a psychiatrist.

The Sheriff added: ‘You behaved deliberately, in a planned way.’

Edmonstone’s great-grandmother, Alice Keppel – Edward VII’s mistress – was also Camilla Parker Bowles’ greatgrandmother. He is the son of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, 7th baronet of Duntreath.