Charles denies it, but what is 'it?'

The English media can't divulge the latest allegations about a member of the royal family, but they sure offer a lot of hints.

Practically everybody in England is talking about it.

A royal aide calls it "totally ludicrous" and says he can't offer specifics but he has to deny it.

Then Prince Charles himself comes out with a statement saying he didn't do it.

What is it?

It's impossible to say.

British newspapers and airwaves have been filled with hints of tales that could bring down the monarchy and their accompanying denials, but none offer a precise explanation.

The Independent referred to "an allegedly compromising incident." The Times of London wrote of "a sexual incident involving a former royal servant."

The Mail on Sunday said it planned to print a "sensational" story based on claims by a former royal servant, but another former aide to Charles won an injunction to stop the story's publication.

The Guardian was ordered not to name the aide. Then, on Thursday, a judge lifted that injunction when the newspaper said it was not going to repeat the allegations. The newspaper immediately identified him.

The prince issued his statement a few hours later.

Some observers said that by responding to the gossip, the prince could be ensuring it eventually gets published.

"It is a high-risk strategy, not only for this case but for what may come afterward," said Lord St. John of Fawsley, a friend of the royal family. "The risk is that the appetite will grow with what it feeds upon and therefore this will go on and on."

The royal family rarely responds to allegations that are not public knowledge, but officials said silence might lend credibility to these claims.

"The allegation is becoming common currency and there's a lot of speculation and innuendo about it," Charles' private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, said in a radio interview Friday. "That's why I want to make it entirely clear, even though I can't refer to the specifics of the allegation, that it is totally untrue and without a shred of substance.

"For anyone who knows the Prince of Wales, the allegation is totally ludicrous," he said.

All of this may seem odd to an American audience routinely exposed to all manner of gossip about celebrities, athletes, even presidents. So why aren't the British media running with the story?

Britain has tough restrictions on the press. For example, an injunction preventing a story from being printed would be exceedingly rare - if not impossible - in the United States.

Also, British libel laws differ significantly from those here. There, the person who sues doesn't have to prove anything. Instead, the defendants must prove that what they have printed is true. The plaintiffs also can sue not only the offending newspaper, but its printers and distributors.

That's why those racy British tabloids tend to print gossip only about people who are unlikely to sue. They don't want to make an enemy of someone with the deep pockets of a future king.

But the laws and injunctions don't prevent them from offering hints, such as continually printing an odd photograph of Prince Charles standing with another man in a field, without explaining why the photograph had significance.

Charles' statement referred to recent "media reports concerning an allegation that a former employee witnessed an incident some years ago involving a senior member of the Royal Family.

"The allegation was that the Prince of Wales was involved in the incident. This allegation is untrue," the statement said.

It went on to add that the servant making the allegations had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism after military service in the Falklands War.

"He has, in the past, made other unrelated allegations, which the police have fully investigated and found to be unsubstantiated," said the statement from Charles, who was visiting Oman on Friday.

Speculation flared up last month after Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, repeated claims that Diana had tape recorded a statement by former royal servant George Smith, who alleged that he had been raped by another royal employee and that he had witnessed a sex act involving a member of the royal family.

Smith's allegation that he was attacked was investigated, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute.

It was Smith's description of what he said he saw that was in the 3,000-word story the Mail on Sunday had prepared for publication, according to the New York Times, which attributed it to an unnamed "someone who saw the story." But then the judge ordered the Mail not to publish the article.

The former aide that sought the injunction, and that was named by the Guardian, was Michael Fawcett. Fawcett, 40, resigned as the prince's personal assistant in March despite being cleared of serious wrongdoing by a report into allegations of malpractice at St. James's Palace, the prince's former official residence.

Senior lawyer Anthony Scrivener said the more the allegations are reported and the more the royals respond, the harder it will become to keep them under injunction.

"You can't have it both ways, and I think the court might very well take that into account."

- Information from the Associated Press, National Public Radio, CNN and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was also used in this report compiled by Ron Brackett.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright