ROYAL RAT'S JUDAS CASH
STEPHEN MARTINTHE Royal bodyguard who betrayed Princess Diana cashed in his pounds 100,000 police pension four days before going public with his seedy memoirs.
Cynical Ken Wharfe waited for the money to arrive before giving the all-clear for the first instalment of his tacky book to be serialised last weekend.
Calculating Wharfe, 53, knew his former bosses would try to stop his pension on learning of the book's betrayal of Diana's most intimate secrets.
So the royal protection squad inspector took the biggest lump-sum payout he could, totalling pounds 104,000, knowing the cash could not be clawed back.
The Sunday Mirror has also learned that Prince Charles has ordered Wharfe to be banned from every royal property in Britain.
Earlier, Charles had personally phoned Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens to demand action be taken against Wharfe. But with so much of Wharfe's pension cashed-in, all Sir John can do is try to stop the payment of what is left, which may prove impossible under police rules.
Embarrassed ex-colleagues of Wharfe are now offering to sign a voluntary confidentiality code, pledging not to sell their stories in an effort to distance themselves from him.
Among his revelations, Wharfe says Diana carried a vibrator in her handbag and claims art dealer Oliver Hoare was "the first man who had ever aroused her physically".
Wharfe's treachery is the first breach of confidence in the 138 years the Met has guarded the Royal Family.
And it is compounded today. In the second instalment of the book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, Wharfe reveals more details of his role in keeping secret the princess's affair with disgraced Life Guards officer James Hewitt. Now Wharfe, who got pounds 250,000 for serialisation rights to the book, is splashing his cash in the South of France with close friend Debbie Hinton, a married mother-of-five.
Wharfe's wife Rosemary, whom he has dumped, has fled her home and business, unable to cope with the humiliation.
She is understood to be seeking a divorce.
Wharfe was assigned as bodyguard to the Duke and Duchess of Kent after his six years as Diana's minder ended when she grew sick of his company.
He only stopped working for the Kents when he retired three weeks ago.
He also struck up a close friendship with a former aide to the Kents, Virginia Fremlin-Key, a 43-year-old mother of two.
The Duke of Kent was last night said to be "spitting mad" about Wharfe. The couple fear he will reveal details of their personal lives too.
A source said: "They are worried that Wharfe has built up a dossier on them too which he will use for his own profit."
-COMMENT: Page 14
Copyright 2002 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.