PRESS BLAMES ROYAL ATTENDANTS FOR PRINCE HARRY'S DRUGS SHAME

The British Press on Monday rounded upon Prince Harry's entourage, blaming
his minders for allowing the third in line to the throne to get embroiled
in a drink and drugs scandal.

Many of the dailies awarded high marks to Harry's father Prince Charles for
the manner in which he dealt with the news that his younger son had
indulged in heavy drinking sessions and smoked cannabis.

Charles took Prince Harry to a drugs rehabilitation clinic to show him the
dangers he was opening himself up to and then allowed the press to print
the embarrassing details of his 17-year-old son's misdemeanours.

For the second day running the drugs and under-age drinking revelations
surrounding Queen Elizabth II's grandson dominated the British papers.

Royal staffers had alerted Prince Charles that Harry had taken cannabis at
private parties, according to the reports.

Harry promptly admitted that he had smoked the drug on several occasions
over two months in the summer and that he had been drinking a lot, a family
friend said.

The tabloids recounted the story in detail, alongside photos of the places
were Prince Harry was said to have indulged in his illicit habits.

According to the broadsheet Times, the teenage prince's entourage should
bear some of the responsibility.

Prince Harry, brother of Prince William and son of the late Diana, Princess
of Wales, goes nowhere without protection from bodyguards, but was left
without surveillance at his Gloucestershire home Highgrove where much of
the cannabis smoking took place, the paper said.

The Daily Express asked how those tasked with protecting the young prince
could have allowed him to frequent bars where drug-taking, and brawls, were
known to occur.

Under the headline; "Harry's cocaine, ecstasy and GHB parties" the tabloid
Daily Mirror revealed that the prince's friends consumed hard drugs, even
though Harry himself assured his father that he had only smoked cannabis.

The prestigious Eton school which Prince Harry attends also came under
press fire for not taking action.

"In the past pupils involved in drug taking faced automatic expulsion," the
Times noted.

A more indulgent commentator in The Independent said that Prince Harry had
suffered enough "for what in this day and age is a common misdemeanour".

The right-wing Daily Telegraph congratulated Prince Charles for his
handling of the family problem.

Informed by the Sunday tabloid News of the World that the drug revelations
were to be published, the heir to the throne confirmed the facts and denied
any false allegations, the paper said.

Prince Charles agreed that the story should be published so as to alert
parents to the risks which their children run, the Sun reported.

The papers stressed that they had not violated the reporting code of
conduct introduced after Princess Diana's fatal car crash in Paris in 1997,
which occurred after she was pursued by paparazzi photographers.

The latest royal story was "of public interest", the Sun and the Times opined.