Prince Harry: Biggest revelations from his new book Spare
There are no shortage of revelations in Prince Harry’s memoir, which is due to be released on 10 January, but has already been seen after a bungle in Spain saw it put on bookshelves early.
The Duke of Sussex has used the 550-plus pages of Spare to detail fallouts with his family, the nicknames he and William use for each other – Willy and Harold – and what happened in the wake of Princess Diana’s death.
Watch Sky News special at 7pm tonight – Harry’s Book: The Fallout
Here’s a round-up of the biggest bombshells.
Duke admits to using cocaine
Prince Harry admits for the first time that he has taken cocaine, smoked weed and tried magic mushrooms.
He writes of his experiences as a teenager: “Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time. At someone’s house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.
“It wasn’t very fun, and it didn’t make me feel especially happy as seemed to happen to others, but it did make me feel different, and that was my main objective. To feel. To be different.”
He revealed he took magic mushrooms at a party at actress Courtney Cox’s house, washing them down with tequila.
He lost his virginity to an older woman
Harry writes about how he lost his virginity to an “older lady” who “loved horses very much”.
He describes the moment as “a humiliating episode” and says it took place “in a field”.
The excerpt reads: “I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and held me back… one of my mistakes was letting it happen in a field, just behind a busy pub.
“No doubt someone had seen us.”
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He killed 25 Taliban fighters
The Duke of Sussex spent 10 years in the Army, including two frontline tours to Afghanistan – during which he killed 25 people, he writes in Spare.
He explains that thanks to record-keeping he could “always tell exactly how many enemy combatants I had killed”.
“So my number: twenty-five. It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.
“Naturally, I would have preferred not to have that figure on my military resume, or in my head, but I would also have preferred to live in a world without the Taliban, a world without war.”
Princes asked Charles not to marry Camilla
Harry and William asked their father not to marry Camilla following the death of their mother.
Speaking about when his father married his second wife, Prince Harry writes: “That’s why when the question came, Willy and I promised our father that we would welcome Camilla to the family.
“The only thing we asked for in return was that he didn’t marry her.
“‘You don’t need to get married again,’ we asked him.”
King Charles was married to his first wife, Princess Diana, for 15 years before the pair separated in 1992. She was killed in a car crash in August 1997. He married Camilla in April 2005.
Kate made Meghan cry
In Spare, Harry elaborates on Meghan’s revelation in their Oprah interview that Kate had made her cry in the run-up to the wedding.
Harry says he came home shortly before the wedding to find Meghan on the floor crying after an argument with her future sister-in-law.
He says they had got into a disagreement over Princess Charlotte’s flower girl dress being too big – an issue Kate wanted Meghan to sort out while she was dealing with the fallout of her father announcing he would not be at the wedding.
Harry confirms what Meghan previously told Oprah, that the following day Kate came over with flowers and an apology card.
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Harry’s memoir: What you need to know
The Nazi costume
Harry puts some of the blame on William and Kate for the Nazi costume he was pictured wearing in 2005.
He says he called the couple for advice on what to wear to a party, from a shortlist of two – and they told him to go for the Nazi outfit, complete with swastika armband.
He claims they “howled” with laughter when they saw the costume and while he flew under the radar at the party, shortly after someone sold photos to the press.
Meghan not invited to Balmoral
The Queen was staying at her Scottish estate when she died last September.
Harry claims he found out his grandmother had died during the plane journey to Balmoral – a trip Charles had warned him Meghan should not go on.
Harry said his father phoned him: “He told me I was welcome at Balmoral, but… without her. He started to explain his reasons, but they didn’t make any sense at all, and it was disrespectful as well. I did not tolerate it from him.
“Don’t even think about talking about my wife like that.
“Repentant, he said, stammering, that he simply didn’t want the place to be full of people. Nobody’s wife was going to go, not even Kate, he told me, so Meg shouldn’t either.”
Harry recreated Diana’s final journey
Prince Harry says he asked a driver to replicate his mother’s final journey in Paris – travelling through the tunnel where the fatal crash took place at 105kph (65mph).
He describes being in Paris at the age of 23 and asking a driver to take him through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at the same speed as the car carrying his mother when it crashed in August 1997.
He writes there was “no reason anyone should ever die inside the tunnel”, adding the drive was a “terrible idea”.
“I told myself I was only doing it to close that chapter, but it was not true.”
Claims brother attacked him
Harry alleges the Prince of Wales grabbed his brother and ripped his necklace before knocking him to the floor.
He says “Willy” called his wife Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrupt”.
“Everything happened so fast. Really, really fast. He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor.
“I fell on top of the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces of it cutting into me. I lay on the ground for a few seconds, dazed, then got up and told him to leave.”
The incident allegedly took place at Nottingham Cottage when Harry was living there in 2019.
Push for investigation into Diana’s death
The duke called the report into his mother’s death an “insult”, saying the conclusion that the crash was due to the driver being drunk was “simplistic and absurd”.
“Even if the man had been drinking, even if he had been drunk, he wouldn’t have had any problem driving through such a short tunnel. Unless paparazzi were following him and dazzled him,” he writes.
“Why had those paparazzi got off lightly? Why weren’t they in prison? Who had sent them? And why weren’t those people in jail either? What other reason could there be apart from corruption and cover-ups being the order of the day?”
He says he and his brother agreed on those questions and planned to issue a statement asking for the investigation to be reopened.
“Those who decided dissuaded us,” he wrote.
UK
Pictured: Boy killed in Gateshead industrial estate fire – 14 children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter
Tributes have been paid to 14-year-old Layton Carr who died in a fire at an industrial estate.
Eleven boys and three girls, aged between 11 and 14 years, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the incident in Gateshead on Friday. They remain in police custody.
Police were alerted to a fire at Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area
Firefighters raced to Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area shortly after 8pm, putting out the blaze a short time later.
Police then issued an appeal for a missing boy, Layton Carr, who was believed to be in the area at the time.
In a statement, the force said that “sadly, following searches, a body believed to be that of 14-year-old Layton Carr was located deceased inside the building”.
Layton’s next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers, police added.
Layton has been described as a ‘beautiful soul’
A fundraising page on GoFundMe has been set up to help Layton’s mother pay for funeral costs.
Organiser Stephanie Simpson said: “The last thing Georgia needs to stress trying to pay for a funeral for her Boy Any donations will help thank you.”
One tribute in a Facebook post read: “Can’t believe I’m writing this my nephew RIP Layton 💔 forever 14 you’ll be a massive miss, thinking of my sister and 2 beautiful nieces right now.”
Another added: “My boy ❤️ my baby cousin, my Layton. Nothing will ever come close to the pain I feel right now. Forever 14. I’ll miss you sausage.”
A third said: “Rest in peace big lad such a beautiful soul taken far to soon my thoughts are with you Gee stay strong girl hear for u always.”
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Detective Chief Inspector Louise Jenkins, of Northumbria Police, also said: “This is an extremely tragic incident where a boy has sadly lost his life.”
She added that the force’s “thoughts are with Layton’s family as they begin to attempt to process the loss of their loved one”.
They are working to establish “the full circumstances surrounding the incident” and officers will be in the area to “offer reassurance to the public”, she added.
A cordon remains in place at the site while police carry out enquiries.
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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