Charles’s charity off the hook

The Metropolitan Police has announced it will take no further action in its cash-for-honours investigation into King Charles’s charity The Prince’s Foundation. In 2021 allegations were made that Michael Fawcett, the King’s former aide, had offered to help the Saudi donor Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz obtain British citizenship and a knighthood. Mahfouz has pledged a reported £1.5 million to various royal charities, and was honoured by the then Prince of Wales with an honorary CBE in 2016 for “for services to charities in the UK”. When the investigation was first opened last year, a spokesperson for the then Prince of Wales said he had “no knowledge” of the events that had been alleged.