BRITAIN: The household of the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne, is "hierarchical and elitist", it was alleged yesterday.
The claim was made by a former personal assistant at Clarence House, the prince's office in London, who was described by the prince in a memo as "so PC it frightens me rigid". In the memo, the prince also blames the education system for making people "think they can all be pop stars".
The memo was read at an employment tribunal involving Ms Elaine Day, who is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal against the prince's household.
Ms Day, of Belvedere, Kent, worked as a personal assistant for five years at Clarence House before she left earlier this year. Clarence House has said it will "vigorously" contest the case, which is being heard in Croydon, south London, and is expected to last three days.
The memo was written by the prince in response to a suggestion by Ms Day that personal assistants with university degrees should be given the opportunity to train to become private secretaries, the hearing was told.
In the memo, the prince wrote: "What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure.
"People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability.
"This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history." The memo concludes: "What on earth am I to tell Elaine? She is so PC it frightens me rigid."
The note, dated March 2003, was a response to a suggestion made by Ms Day to the prince's assistant private secretary, Mr Paul Kefford.
Ruth Downing, counsel for Ms Day, asked her what she understood the memo to mean.
"I completely felt that people could not rise above their station," she said. Ms Day told the tribunal the royal household was run in an Edwardian fashion.
She said: "It's hierarchical, elitist, everyone knows their place and if we forget our place the system will punish us."
Ms Day claims she was one of three female members of staff who had been sexually harassed by Mr Kefford.
"He frequently approached me from behind when I was photocopying or in the kitchen. He would put his hand on my back and rub it, and would also touch my shoulder. This made me feel very uncomfortable," she told the tribunal.
After an event in August 2002, she said: "I didn't ever want to be put in a position where I was alone with him - i.e., working late at night, going into his office and shutting the door."
Ms Day told the tribunal a colleague had informed her that Mr Kefford "had a history of inappropriate touching when he worked for the civil service".
Ms Day claimed that after she made a complaint about his behaviour in October 2002 she received "unjustified criticism".
She said: "I believe I was victimised as a result of minor mistakes I made. I was also being set up to fail. When I made a minor mistake it was seized upon."
She added: "I was aware of a culture in the household, which stemmed from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, that the respondent (the prince's household) would not welcome employees which it perceived rocked the boat. This was made abundantly clear to me."
Ms Day told the tribunal a previous secretary who had made a complaint of sexual harassment against the then assistant private secretary, Mr Nick Archer, had "left suddenly".
The tribunal heard that Ms Day (45) took her complaint about Mr Kefford to Prince Charles's private secretary Sir Michael Peat, who reportedly said: "I thought he was gay."
Ms Day told the hearing: "I said, 'I don't know whether he is gay or bisexual but he certainly has a problem.'"
She later told the hearing she had been made to work in the attic during a visit to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh in June 2003.
She said: "I had been consigned to the attic with the domestic staff. I appreciate that it may seem a trivial matter but working in the palace is about status, hierarchy, and knowing one's place. Putting me in the attic, with the domestic staff and away from the office staff, had clearly been done to humiliate me and remind me of my place." - (PA)