Elizabeth Callaghan: UK correspondent on King Charles getting heckled over the weekend

King Charles has been heckled in public about his brother's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

As the King visited a UK cathedral, a man bellowed out questions about Prince Andrew.

UK correspondent Elizabeth Callaghan says this is another 'huge embarrassment' for the royal family - on top of the growing scrutiny.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Elizabeth Callahan UK correspondence with that's hello.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Elizabeth, Hello Heather, how are you, Mike. Great to be
with you again.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I cannot believe the absolute cluster that happened with that
migrant six offend. How did that even happen?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, yesterday the Justice Secretary David Lammy was in Parliament
being grilled in a House of Commons by MP's into
how on earth a forty eight year old asylum seeker
who had been convicted of a number of sexual assaults
was accidentally released from prison and left to roam the

(00:37):
streets for forty eight hours. He went off to London.
But you know this, apparently, no surprise, was a human error.
According to the Justice Secretary, he has announced an independent
investigation into exactly what went wrong. The prison h MP

(00:58):
Chelmsford is in Essex, in the southeast of the country
and this was a really high profile case of this
offender who had come over from Ethiopia on a small
boat back in June. In July he committed an offense
against a fourteen year old girl and another woman as well.
It led to huge protests outside the migrant hotel where

(01:22):
he had been staying in Epping in Essex and then
he was sentenced to twelve months last month in September
and jailed and that was where we thought he would
be spending most of his time before being deported. So
he had been due to be transferred to an immigration

(01:42):
detention center but instead was released into the community. It's
you know that there have been extra checks are already
being put on. They're effective immediately. That's another thing that
Justice Secretary has announced, but really huge questions to be
It's a massive embarrassment for the government as to how

(02:04):
this person was at large. Fortunately was re released very
quickly earlier over the weekend. David Lammy, the Justice actually
said that he would be deported today later today, but
yesterday or this week, But yesterday he didn't mention that again,
so I'm not sure what's going on with that, but
I think the quicker that he is deported, the better

(02:27):
it's going to look for the government.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Absolutely couldn't agree more. Now, what do you think the
King needs to do about Andrew given that this has
got to Hickling territory.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I couldn't possibly give my own opinion on that, but
it's again a huge embarrassment for the King, for the
whole of the royal family who have Prince Andrew and
his connections to Epstein, the fact that he's been living
in this thirty room mansion for several years, rent free

(03:00):
for twenty years with his ex wife. Yesterday, the King
was doing the rounds during a visit to the cathedral,
greeting crowds as he often does so so well with
members of the public, when a protester who had got
into the crowd shouted out, how long have you known

(03:22):
about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to
cover it up for Andrew? And then he went on
to say should MPs be allowed to debate the royals
in the House of Commons, which is something that certainly
the liberal Demotocrats are trying to get to get done.
But the King, ever professional, didn't respond to the questions,

(03:43):
carried on greeting fans as he would and actually a
lot of the people people that come out and greet
the Queen the King a generally big royalists, so a
lot of them were very annoyed that this man was
upsetting the whole event, was telling him to shut up
and go, oh, go away, go leave him alone, Leave
the King alone. So yes, at the moment the situation

(04:09):
Prince Andrew, you know, there's newspaper story after newspaper story.
The latest thing is his living arrangements, as I said,
and it looks like he may move out of this
Thursday bedroom mansion, the Royal Lodge on the Crown Escape
Estate in Windsor potentially going to Prince Harry and Meghan's

(04:31):
old class Frogmore cottage. But then he also apparently and
the Palace is not commenting on any of his living arrangements.
Sarah Ferguson his ex wife. He wants her to have
Adelaide Cottage, which is where the Prince and Princess so
Welles will be moving out of next month. So whether
he'll get his way, whether he deserves anything, frankly, you know,

(04:55):
but of course he denies any wrongdoing in regards to
any of the allegations against him. But certainly there is
starting to be an appetite for a debate in the
comments about his living arrangements which effectively come out of
taxpayers money and his connection with Epstein.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, as they should be. Hey, thank you very much,
really appreciate Elizabeth. That's Elizabeth Callahan, UK correspondent for more
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