Charles ‘cash for access’ claim over £100k for dinner
PRINCE Charles was embroiled in ‘cash for access’ claims yesterday after it emerged wealthy donors were offered dinner with the heir to the throne for £100,000.
Society ‘fixer’ Michael WynneParker promised time with the Prince of Wales, a black-tie dinner and an overnight stay at his Scottish mansion in return for a six-figure donation to one of his charities, it was revealed.
an email from Mr Wynne-Parker said donors could expect to be greeted by the prince at Dumfries house in ayrshire ‘with conversation and photographer’.
It also set out that five per cent of their fee would go to Mr WynneParker, with another 20 per cent going to a second middleman.
an investigation has been launched into the cash for access claim. a source said a donation to the Prince’s Foundation, the independent charity which runs Dumfries house, did not guarantee access to Charles.
the foundation said it had asked its ethics committee to investigate the use of third parties to introduce prospective donors.
an email sent by Mr Wynne-Parker in 2019 set out what ‘selected clients’ could expect if they paid £100,000 for two people to visit Dumfries house, the mansion which Charles secured for the nation in 2007 with a £20million loan from his charity foundation. they would be driven there in a royal car, tour the house or gardens and gather for drinks in the evening, when they would meet the prince.
the email, leaked to the Mail on Sunday, said: ‘hRh greets each guest with conversation and photographer.’ Donors would enjoy dinner and entertainment, such as a piano recital, before retiring, it said.
the email also offered the prospect of a longer-term relationship. It said: ‘Depending in [sic] the amount of synergy between each client and hRh, clients are placed on guest lists depending on their interests.’
the email said 5 per cent of the fee would go to Mr Wynne-Parker and 20 per cent to another middleman. the remaining 75 per cent went to Dumfries house via the account of
Burke’s Peerage, the guide to the gentry, whose editor William Bortrick was named as being closely involved in the scheme.
Mr Wynne-Parker told the Mail on Sunday that donors to the foundation tended to give ‘between £100,000 and £1 million’ and insisted it was ‘normal practice’ for intermediaries to be paid for facilitating donations.
Mr Bortrick denied any impropriety and having any ‘business arrangement or agreement’ with Mr Wynne-Parker.
a spokesman for the Prince’s Foundation, which is run independently of Prince Charles, said it ‘takes very seriously the allegations relating to third parties who have introduced
‘Positive impact on our beneficiaries’
prospective donors in the past. We were not aware of any financial gain being sought by these individuals, whom we have never paid, and have ceased our relationship with these individuals and referred the matter to our ethics committee.
‘Michael Wynne-Parker does not represent the Prince’s Foundation and the email he sent is not representative of the Foundation’s approach to fundraising.
‘We are dependent on generous donations to enable us to deliver charitable activity which has a positive impact on our beneficiaries throughout the UK and across the world. our education and training programmes, in particular, benefit more than 15,000 people every year.’