THE Princess of Wales's brother, Earl Spencer, destroyed a South African man's family by secretly wooing his wife, the Cape Town man said in an interview published yesterday.
Don Collopy (41) is suing Spencer for 150,000 rand (nearly £21,500) for loss of the love and affection of his wife, Chantal (37), who has left him and their two children for the earl. "The earl steamrollered over our lives," Collopy told the Afrikaans language Rapport newspaper.
Collopy has claimed in papers before the Cape Town Supreme Court that Spencer, who has settled in Cape Town, has been surreptitiously seeing Chantal since 1994 when they met in England at cricketer Allan Lamb's birthday party.
Gladiators contestant Nicki Claxton was "comfortable" yesterday in the hospital where she is recovering from a fall which left her partially paralysed.
The 22 year old business studies student from Sheffield Hallam University broke two vertebrae at the base of her spine on Thursday when she fell 20 feet after slipping from the Pole Axe apparatus used in the popular show.
The accident happened during a dry run for the London Weekend Television series at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena.
King Juan Carlos of Spain will have to revise his holiday plans because the royal yacht Faruria has broken down again.
Deprived once more of his traditional summertime jaunt in the Balearic islands because of a faulty engine piece, King Juan took it in stride, joking with reporters that he, would have to take up a collection to buy himself a new boat.
A gift in 1979 by Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, the Fartuna's most embarrassing breakdown was in 1988 when it had to be rescued by two tugboats. Prince Charles was on board.
Britain's Queen Mother turned 96 yesterday, her enduring popularity confirmed by the 2,000 people who turned out to sing Happy Birthday as she left church on the Sandringham royal estate in eastern England.