Duchess target of abuse

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 10

Duchess target of abuse

NZPA-AAP London The Duchess of York was visibly shocked as jail inmates hurled a barrage of abuse and four-letter words at her during a visit to a London hospital yesterday. Inmates at Wormwood Scrubs, a maximum security jail in west London, yelled inssults and obscenities at the Duchess when they spotted her from their cell windows. Prison authorities later said they could not discipline those involved. A Home Office spokesman said any activity outside the jail was bound to attract prisoners’ attention. "It was not possible to identify individual culprits and so it is not possible to take any disciplinary action,” he said. A Buckingham' Palance spokesman said the Duchess heard nothing specific, only some muted noise in the background. Eye witnesses at the scene said the Duchess turned towards the prison as the hisses and boos began but looked away awkwardly when the verbal abuse started. She then reportedly waved her hand at them in disgust while officials escorted her from her car to the Queen Charlotte’s hospital, which is researching the spina bifida deformity.

The Duchess of York has started to climb the Royal popularity stakes once more with a heavy

round of engagements in the last two weeks. She was criticised in the press for taking a Swiss ski holiday last month with her husband, Prince Andrew, which earned her the nickname “Her Royal Idleness,” but officials said they saw no connection with today’s abuse. Reports said the Duchess came closer to tears when she stepped inside the hospital but not as a result of her reception outside. She was told by staff that a baby had died just an hour earlier in one of the wards she was due to visit. The Duchess, asked for some privacy in an office where she wrote a personal note and asked nurses to give it to the parents. She then continued her tour.