Prince Harry's 'no cheat'
2005-07-05 08:03
London - Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, was cleared on Monday of cheating on his graduation art exam at prestigious Eton College when a tribunal ruled his teacher had been fired unfairly.
The employment tribunal in Reading, west of London, upheld the contention of art teacher Sarah Forsyth, 30, that she had been unfairly dismissed in her suit against the school.
But it rejected her claim of sex discrimination and criticised her for abusing her position when she made a secret tape recording of Harry in an attempt to back up her claims he cheated on the exam in 2003.
Forsyth had accused the college's headmaster Anthony Little of having wanted to fire her because she knew too much about the help given Prince Harry before his final exam in art.
Forsyth said the head of the art department, Ian Burke, had helped Harry, now 20, complete his work of art for the exam. She said she had written almost all of the written text submittted with the art work.
But the tribunal accepted Burke's account, who said that Forsyth had not written the piece on her own but simply sat with Prince Harry and helped with vocabulary such as "multi-directional hatching".
Clarence House, the official residence of Prince Harry, his brother William, their father Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla, said it was "delighted" that Harry had been "totally cleared" of cheating.