The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Kingston died from ‘catastrophic’ head injury
Husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor found dead with a gun near to his body at his parents’ Cotswolds home
THOMAS KINGSTON, the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, was found dead at his parents’ home with a “catastrophic head injury” and a gun close to his body, a coroner has said.
Mr Kingston, 45, died at the property in a Cotswold village on Sunday.
Katy Skerrett, the senior coroner for Gloucestershire, said the financier, who was the son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, had lunch with his parents before his body was found in an outbuilding.
She said a post-mortem examination had been undertaken and that a provisional cause of death had been given as a “traumatic wound to head”.
As she opened an inquest into Kingston’s death, Ms Skerrett said she had been given evidence of the brief circumstances surrounding “this tragic incident”.
She said: “Mr Kingston was visiting his parents home in the Cotswolds on 25 February. He ate lunch with his parents.
“His father went out to walk the dogs. On his return, Mr Kingston was not in the house. After approximately 30 minutes, his mother went to look for him.
“His father forced entry into an outbuilding when he couldn’t gain entry. Mr Kingston was found inside with a catastrophic head injury. A gun was present at the scene.
Emergency services were called. Police are satisfied the death is not suspicious.”
Several journalists and a Buckingham Palace representative were present at the hearing at Gloucestershire Coroner’s Court, but no family members attended.
Kingston once worked as a hostage negotiator in Iraq. Known as Tom, he read economic history at the University of Bristol before joining the diplomatic missions unit at the Foreign Office.
He was seconded to Baghdad as project manager for the International Centre for Reconciliation, based at Coventry Cathedral, in 2003. The following year, he cheated death in a suicide bombing in the Iraqi capital that killed 22 people.
Rev Canon Andrew White, then vicar of St George’s Church, the only Anglican church in Iraq, worked closely with him.
He described him as a fearless and very committed Christian, telling The
Telegraph: “I loved him so much. The thing about Tom was he was never scared. Whatever I asked him to do, he would do it with a big smile on his face in the middle of a war zone.”
Kingston returned to the UK to work for Schroders, the global asset management firm, as an equity analyst before becoming the managing director of Voltan Capital Management and later a director of Devonport Capital, which provides short-term loans to businesses operating in the developing world.
His father was a hugely successful barrister, specialising in planning law. Also a devout Christian, he was elected to the General Synod in 2016. His mother, Jill, is a trustee of a Christian healing centre and runs the Nadezhda Charitable Trust, which supports projects in Zimbabwe.
Kingston was introduced to Lady Gabriella by mutual friends and he proposed on Sark, where his parents have a holiday home. The couple married at St George’s Chapel Windsor in May 2019, in a ceremony attended by senior royals including the late Queen.