Princess Anne has discussed the future of the monarchy and says “it is a moment” to have discussions about relevancy, in a rare television interview.
The Princess Royal says she believes the monarchy has “long-term benefits” which help provide “stability”.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Canadian channel CBC News, Princess Anne also said when it comes to the King, “you know what you’re getting” and that her job remains a supporting role.
She is the only senior working royal to give an interview ahead of the coronation.
CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault raised the idea of a slimmed-down monarchy and said it is difficult to imagine how the 72-year-old princess would have the time to take on more work.
Anne replied: “Well, I think the ‘slimmed-down’ [monarchy] was said in a day when there were a few more people around to make that seem like a justifiable comment.”
When it was put to her that the world changes, Anne said: “It changes a bit. I mean, it doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing, I have to say. I’m not quite sure what else, you know, we can do.”
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Anne also talked about the impact that COVID had on her father Prince Philip, saying: “I think it stole a bit from my father who lost a lot of the people who would have gone to see him, who kept him interested, and he lost all of that.”
During the interview, which was carried out at St James’s Palace, the Princess Royal was asked about people having questions about the relevance of the monarchy.
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“It’s not a conversation that I would necessarily have – I think it’s perfectly true that it is a moment where you need to have that discussion,” she said.
“But I would just underline that the monarchy provides, with the constitution, a degree of long-term stability that is actually quite hard to come by in any other way.”
Royal interviews are rarely given and Anne’s comments provide a significant insight from one of the most senior members of the Royal Family.
Talking about the role and duties of her brother, the King, she said: ” You know what you’re getting, because he’s been practising for a bit, and I don’t think he will change. He is committed to his own level of service. That will remain true.”
When asked about her ceremonial role as “Gold-Stick-in-Waiting”, travelling behind the King and Queen after the ceremony, Princess Anne joked: “I said ‘yes’ because, not least of all, it solves my dress problem.”
Storm Eowyn brought widespread closures in Ireland and parts of the UK on Friday as flights, rail services and hospitals were all disrupted.
But Saturday is set to see more disarray in the wake of the battering communities took.
Here’s what we know:
Police Scotland asked people to “continue to avoid” travelling in the dangerous weather into the weekend and ScotRail said that while it would work to reopen lines, customers shouldn’t expect any trains to run before midday on Saturday at the earliest.
National Rail said journeys may be affected on Saturday, and asked customers to check before travelling.
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Phone alerts for Storm Eowyn
Weather warnings in place
There are still three weather warnings in place across Scotland on Saturday including an amber alert for wind – meaning danger to life.
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In England there is a warning in place for ice until 10am stretching from Plymouth to Nottingham, and in Northern Ireland a snow and ice alert until 10am.
There are further alerts warning of wind and rain into Sunday and Monday across parts of the UK.
The department for infrastructure in Northern Ireland said 1,800 trees had fallen and police added it could take days to assess the storm damage.
They warned people that even after the storm passed structures could be weakened.
Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck, who is in charge of the storm response operation, said on Friday evening “we are still not out of the potential risks in respect of this storm”.
“Many roads right across Northern Ireland do continue to be impassable, with fallen trees debris and power lines down,” he added.
Celtic FC in Glasgow said the club’s stadium was damaged by the storm and they were “unable to confirm at this stage” whether their game against Dundee would go ahead. A final decision is expected to be made on Saturday morning.
The Scottish League One game between Arbroath and Kelty Hearts was postponed due to storm damage at the stadium.
Dublin Airport said flight operations were “moving well” on Friday evening, but Edinburgh Airport said it expected “knock-on” impacts over the next few days, so passengers should check with their airline for the latest flight information.
The Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB) said that after 725,000 homes and businesses were left without power on Friday further outages were possible into Saturday. Some properties could be left in the dark for up to a week.
On Friday night a map of outages in Northern Ireland showed power cuts across the region. Authorities said around 250,000 household and businesses were still without power. It could take up to 10 days for them all to be reconnected.
A woman whose four young boys died in a house fire after she went to a supermarket has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Deveca Rose, 30, was found guilty of the manslaughter of her two sets of twins, Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, in October last year.
Jurors were told the four children died after a discarded cigarette or upturned tea light sparked a blaze at the family house in Collingwood Road, Sutton, in south London.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC said during sentencing on Friday: “There are no words to describe this case other than a deeply tragic one.”
During the prosecution’s opening statement last year, Kate Lumsdon KC alleged that Rose left the children alone to visit a supermarket on the evening of 16 December 2021.
She also told the court at the time that “there was rubbish thickly spread throughout the house”.
Children ‘too young’ to escape
Rose, who the court heard suffered from mental health problems, covered her head with a thick hood and hid her face as she was sentenced.
Judge Lucraft told the court that the children were left alone by their mother in an “unsafe” house that was lit using tea light candles when the fire broke out.
He then noted that she had already been to Sainsbury’s earlier that day, and her second trip at the time of the fire was not to purchase any items that were “essential or vital”.
The front door was locked at the time of the fire, the judge noted, and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in the home were either not working or were out of battery.
“You were not there, and the children were too young to know what to do,” he said.
“As a result of what you did, they were all killed.”
He then described the victims as lively and engaging children who were “deeply loved” by all who had a role in their care.
After the fire started, the court heard that the children ran upstairs and started calling for help.
A neighbour attempted to break down the front door, and firefighters later found their bodies under beds once they entered the property.
The boys were rushed to separate hospitals, where they died from inhalation of fumes that night.
Rose arrived home while firefighters were still tackling the blaze, and claimed she left the children with a friend called Jade. Police concluded she either did not exist or was not at the property that day.
The court heard social worker Georgia Singh had raised concerns about the family and that the case was closed three months before the fire.
Previously, a health visitor had also expressed worries, but they were not followed up after she retired, jurors were told.
The children had not attended school for three weeks before their deaths.
It also heard evidence which suggested Rose may have suffered from a personality disorder – but the prosecution said this was not a defence.
Dalton Hoath, father of the boys, told the court ahead of sentencing that losing his sons was “the worst day of my life”.
In a victim impact statement read to the court by a relative, he said: “Their lives had just begun but were cut so short. It was every parent’s worst nightmare… I have tried to be some sort of normal for my own family now.
“I will never recover from losing my funny, beautiful boys. I have to fight for all of us left behind and live with this massive pain in my heart before I meet them again.”
The boys’ grandfather Jason Hoath also told the court, “the pain from this loss has shattered my life in every possible way,” while their great-grandmother Sally Johnson said: “The thought of them crying and screaming out will haunt me forever.”
Step-grandmother Kerrie Hoath later said outside of the court that the children had been “cruelly taken away from us” by Rose.
She then added: “The impact [the children] have made on us in their short lives cannot be measured and will never be forgotten.
“We miss them every day and will always hold them in our hearts. While there will be better days to come, the hole that has been left by our children’s deaths cannot be filled.”
Three judges who oversaw family court proceedings related to the care of Sara Sharif can be named next week, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Mr Justice Williams issued a ruling last year that the three judges involved in historic family court cases related to Sara, as well as social workers and guardians, could not be named due to a “real risk” of harm from a “virtual lynch mob”.
News organisations had previously appealed against Mr Williams’s decision on the grounds of transparency about the court case relating to the murder of the 10-year-old.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif and her stepmother Beinash Batool were jailed for lifein December for years of horrific “torture” and “despicable” abuse that led to her death.
On Friday, Sir Geoffrey Vos said: “In the circumstances of this case, the judge had no jurisdiction to anonymise the historical judges either on 9 December 2024 or thereafter. He was wrong to do so.”
He added that “if, notwithstanding the lack of evidence to that effect, the judge was concerned about their being named, there were other, more appropriate, ways to protect them”.
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From December: Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother jailed
Sir Geoffrey added on Friday that “judges will sit on many types of case in which feelings run high” and “where there may be risks to their personal safety”.
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“It is up to the authorities with responsibility for the courts to put appropriate measures in place to meet these risks, depending on the situation presented by any particular case,” he said.
“The first port of call is not, and cannot properly be, the anonymisation of the judge’s name.”
He also said that Mr Williams “got carried away” in his ruling and “behaved unfairly” toward two journalists. He then noted that the High Court judge made an “unwarranted” sarcastic remark about a 2021 Channel 4 programme.
Sir Geoffrey told the court: “He said, for no reason that I could discern: ‘Thank goodness that journalists don’t have to operate as the courts do and hear both sides before delivering their verdict!’.
“Such sarcasm has no proper place in a court judgment.”
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal heard the judges who oversaw court proceedings had “serious concerns”about the risks posed to them and their families if they were named.
It also heard that two of the judges are retired, with the third still sitting as a judge, and that all three wanted “to convey their profound shock, horror and sadness about what happened to Sara Sharif”.
Mr Williams previously also argued that holding individuals involved in those proceedings responsible was “equivalent to holding the lookout on the Titanic responsible for its sinking”.
Previously released documents showed that Surrey County Council first had contact with Sharif and Sara’s mother, Olga Sharif, in 2010 – more than two years before Sara was born.
At the time, the council had received “referrals indicative of neglect” relating to her two older siblings, known only as Z and U.
The authority began care proceedings concerning Z and U in January 2013, and involved Sara within a week of her birth.
Between 2013 and 2015, several allegations of abuse were made that were never tested in court, with one hearing in 2014 told that the council had “significant concerns” about the children returning to Sharif, “given the history of allegations of physical abuse of the children and domestic abuse with Mr Sharif as the perpetrator”.
In 2019, a judge approved Sara moving to live with her father at the home in Woking where she later died after a campaign of abuse.
Sharif and Batool were jailed for life for Sara’s murder in December, with minimum terms of 40 years and 33 years.
Her uncle, Faisal Malik, was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of causing or allowing her death.
In a statement after the court’s ruling, freelance journalists Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers – who challenged Mr Williams’s order – said: “We feel that any other decision would have set a dangerous precedent going forward and undermined the efforts undertaken over the last two years to open up the family courts to greater transparency.
“There now need to be real efforts to work out what went wrong in this heartbreaking case where a young girl’s life was stolen from her, and what might need to change.”