Tag: Sarah Ferguson

  • Turkish court hearing in Duchess of York secret filming case

    Turkish court hearing in Duchess of York secret filming case

    Turkish court hearing in Duchess of York secret filming case

    Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson The Duchess of York wore a wig and headscarf as a disguise during filming
    Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson The Duchess of York wore a wig and headscarf as a disguise during filming

    A hearing has taken place in Turkey in a court case in which the Duchess of York has been accused over the secret filming of orphans for a documentary.

    Sarah Ferguson is being defended by a Turkish legal team but has declined to go to Ankara for the trial.

    She is accused of violating the privacy of children during the filming for ITV.

    The duchess has previously apologised for any offence, but says she stands by the 2008 documentary’s conclusion that ill-treatment was taking place.

    If found guilty, she could be sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

    BBC correspondent Jonathan Head says the duchess has made it clear she will not return to Turkey and British officials have insisted there is no possibility of her being extradited.

    Tied to beds

    Posing as an aid worker, the duchess accompanied a television crew into a state orphanage in Ankara.

    Scenes were recorded of alleged ill-treatment, including emaciated children tied to their beds and left in cots all day.

    Princess Eugenie and the Duchess of York The Duchess said she ‘went as a mum’ to the orphanage

    She visited a second institution in Istanbul with her daughter Princess Eugenie, who said conditions endured by the children there had “opened her eyes.”

    The documentary – which also included footage of children filmed in Romania – was broadcast on ITV1’s Tonight programme in Britain in November 2008.

    It provoked an angry reaction from Turkish politicians, who accused the duchess of being involved in a campaign to tarnish their country’s reputation.

    Human rights record

    BBC presenter Chris Rogers, who was part of the ITV programme team in 2008, said they knew it was against Turkish law to film in secret, but that the public “needed to know.”

    Speaking earlier this year, Mr Rogers, who is also charged with invasion of privacy, said there was “a strong public interest argument for us to do this” because Turkey might join the EU soon.

    Mr Rogers said Turkey has been told it must improve its human rights record, before it can become a full member of the European Union.

    When charges were first laid in January, the duchess said she had gone purely as a mother, and was “happy with courage to stand by the film.”

    The trial could last for several months.

    via BBC News – Turkish court hearing in Duchess of York secret filming case.

  • Video: Theresa May accused of ‘double standards’ over Duchess of York extradition to Turkey

    Video: Theresa May accused of ‘double standards’ over Duchess of York extradition to Turkey

    Home secretary Theresa May has been accused of “double standards” for refusing to extradite the Duchess of York to Turkey.

    Christopher Hope

    By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

    10:00PM GMT 16 Jan 2012

    Lawyers and campaigners pointed out that the same legislation is being used to extradite a British student to America for alleged copyright breaches.

    The Duke of York’s former wife is accused of “violating” the privacy of children at state–run orphanages by filming them covertly for a television documentary in 2008.

    Mrs May is refusing to accede to the request because the charge does not constitute an offence under British law.

    However lawyers and campaigners pointed out that under the same legislation the UK has agreed to extradite a British student to America for alleged copyright breaches.

    Richard O’Dwyer, 23, a computer science student at Sheffield Hallam University faces up to 10 years in prison for operating a website called ‘TVShack’.

    His legal team argued in court last week that running TVShack was not an offence in Britain, because it did not host copyright material and European law says no crime is committed if a website acts as a “mere conduit”.

    However, Judge Purdy rejected the argument because the student had control over what links were posted. He set up a second website a day after authorities shut down the first in July 2010.

    Yesterday, Mr O’Dwyer’s mother Julia accused the Home Office of “double standards” and having different standards for “princes and paupers”.

    Mrs O’Dwyer said: “I cannot understand the discriminatory attitude of the Home Office towards these two cases.

    “If there is no crime committed by UK standards then, prince or pauper, you should be protected from extradition by your own government.

    “By failing to step in to support Richard, the Home Office has just further discredited our rotten extradition system and itself.”

    Britain has an extradition treaty with Turkey under the 1957 Council of Europe Convention on Extradition, honoured under part two of the 2003 Extradition Act.

    Mark Spragg, the solicitor for the ‘NatWest Three’ bankers who unsuccessfully fought extradition from the UK to the US in 2006, said a court should decide if the Duchess of York should be extradited.

    Mr Spragg said: “I do not understand why the Duchess of York should not be considered for extradition upon a request from Turkey.

    “If a request is made, then it is for the court here to decide if the offence she is accused of there is also an offence here and which attracts a sentence of more than 12 months in prison.

    “On the basis of the strange decision last week in the O’Dwyer case it seems that even that may not now be a bar to extradition.”

    The Duchess, 52, is said to be “stressed” by the allegations. If convicted, she would face a maximum sentence of 22 years in jail.

    She has put foreign travel plans on hold in case she went to a country which decided to honour the request from Turkey. A trip to the US was cancelled at the weekend.

    The news came as a leading Turkish opposition politician has rallied in support of the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson after Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor called for her extradition for taking part in an undercover documentary.

    Riza Turkmen, Deputy of the Republican People’s Party, said: “What’s the crime in regard to this action? It was better to do this. After that, the children’s condition of care improved. I don’t see any crime in it. Why the Chief Prosecutor insisted on this issue, I don’t understand.”

    A Home Office spokesman said: “It is not our usual policy to comment on individual cases. However, the Home Office can confirm it has received a formal request for mutual legal assistance concerning Sarah, Duchess of York. It is not appropriate to comment further.”

    via Theresa May accused of ‘double standards’ over Duchess of York extradition to Turkey – Telegraph.

  • Duchess of York charged in Turkey over orphanages documentary | UK news | The Guardian

    Duchess of York charged in Turkey over orphanages documentary | UK news | The Guardian

    Sarah Ferguson wore disguise to make 2008 ITV programme that Turkish politicians said was smear to derail EU bid

    John Plunkett

    guardian.co.uk

    Good Day LA Los Angeles A 007

    Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is accused of violating the privacy of five children. Photograph: Startraks Photo / Rex Features

    A court in Turkey has brought charges against the Duchess of York over a controversial ITV documentary in which she went undercover to secretly film orphanages in Ankara and Istanbul.

    The court accused Sarah Ferguson in her absence of going “against the law in acquiring footage and violating privacy” of five children. The charges carry a maximum jail term of more than 22 years if a conviction results.

    Ferguson wore a disguise to visit the homes with her daughter Princess Eugenie for the special edition of ITV’s Tonight current affairs show, which was broadcast in November 2008.

    The film, which prompted a major diplomatic row with the Turkish government, featured footage of children dressed in bedclothes and rags, some of them with shaven heads and tied to beds or left in their cots all day.

    Turkish politicians accused the programme-makers of a smear campaign aimed at derailing the country’s attempts to join the European Union.

    Ferguson, who also covertly filmed in orphanages in Romania, accompanied by her other daughter, Beatrice, said at the time of the broadcast that she was “apolitical” and was “happy with courage to stand by the film”.

    ITV declined to comment and is understood not to have been contacted by the Turkish authorities.

    The broadcaster previously described the programme as a “valid area of public interest at a time when the UK government is endorsing the accession of Turkey into the EU, a process which is conditional in part on Turkey improving its human rights record with children”.

    It was unclear why Turkish authorities waited more than three years to raise the charges.

    Ferguson did not declare her royal status during the film, in which she was known only as Sarah, with the footage filmed by members of her entourage posing as potential wealthy donors. The Tonight special was watched by 2.4 million viewers.

    via Duchess of York charged in Turkey over orphanages documentary | UK news | The Guardian.

  • Put a royal sock in it, Sarah

    Put a royal sock in it, Sarah

    Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get worse for the Duke of York, the Duchess offers her support. Judith Woods reports.

    Sarah Ferguson

    Who would want to be the Duchess of York’s PR this week? Short of being caught in a YouTube tryst with Charlie Sheen, snorting cocaine off a hooker in a hot tub, Sarah Ferguson’s stock could not conceivably sink any lower.

    At a time when her beleaguered, though still swaggering ex-husband, the Duke of York, is fighting for his future as Britain’s trade ambassador, her blunderingly gauche attempt to “support” him has merely piled Pelion on Ossa.

    In her latest intemperate outpouring the 51-year-old has querulously apologised for allowing the Duke to arrange a £15,000 payment from American billionaire and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to help relieve her £5 million or so debts.

    She claims to be mortified that her actions have reflected badly on the man she admires most in all the world (the Duke, not Epstein) and has declared she would throw herself under a bus for her former husband. There are those in royal circles who are no doubt already revving up a Routemaster and wishing she would just get on with it.

    Being chums with the criminal class is highly dubious, but in truth, anyone casting aspersions on the Duke’s questionable judgment need look no further than the woman he married, still shares a house with (the Royal Lodge at Windsor) and to whom he remains bizarrely devoted.

    Needy, venal and entirely unencumbered with self- knowledge or native wit, the Duchess is yet again the architect of her own misfortune – less than a year after she was filmed in an uncover tabloid sting, seedily asking for cash in exchange for royal access.

    Her public declaration that she “abhors paedophilia” was so excruciatingly jejune it had half the nation involuntarily raising its hands mouthwards, in a subconscious attempt to vicariously gag her while the other half hastily logged on to www.republic.org to check if she were some sort of savant secretly committed to the downfall of the monarchy.

    But no, she is simply being Sarah. In 1994 a royal aide, Lord Charteris, famously referred to her as “vulgar, vulgar, vulgar” and was condemned as a snob. Fifteen years on, his pithy insight is to be applauded. According to the public relations expert Mark Borkowski, if nothing else, the Duchess is consistent.

    “She’s being true to her brand,” he says, simply. “She was a disaster when she was married to the oaf and she remains a complete car crash. She has a completely reckless willingness to engage with anyone who has her phone number: they call her, she spouts her mouth off and the rest is history.”

    Talk to long-standing friends and acquaintances and the Duchess’s verbosity becomes a leitmotif. The jolly garrulousness that once made her such refreshingly good company in the rather stilted atmosphere of Buckingham Palace has turned her into a liability.

    “Sarah is stupid and greedy which is a fatal combination, and she never knows when to keep her mouth shut,” is the harsh verdict of one royal insider who has known her for more than a decade.

    “She can be quite kind, but in recent times she just lives in her own little world and has no conception of the impact her behaviour will have until it all flies up in her face. The most frustrating aspect is that she never learns from her mistakes. Once upon a time, she had everything going for her and she botched it up.”

    Having married the Duke, then second in line to the throne, in 1986, the Duchess gave birth to two daughters, Princesses Beatrice, now 22, and Eugenie, 20. But she admitted to an American magazine in 2001 that the marriage began to disintegrate within a week (yes, a week) of the state ceremony because of her husband’s naval duties.

    The couple announced their separation in early 1992 and a few months later a set of unfortunate photographs was published in the press showing the American financial manager John Bryan sucking her toes, perhaps as a prelude to restructuring her portfolio.

    In the wake of her divorce in 1996, the Duchess spent much of her time in the United States, where she carved out a media career, wrote children’s stories and an autobiography and was in demand for commercial endorsements. America, the crucible of the confessional culture, appeared to be the perfect place for a woman who loved to talk about herself.

    Her publicised weight gain and weight loss led to a lengthy involvement as a spokeswoman for WeightWatchers, and there were adverts for cranberry juice and Avon and a chat show before she once again “botched” things up with the cash-for-access scandal and was immortalised bragging to a fake businessman that she could “open up any door you want” in return for £500,000.

    The Duchess subsequently admitted – on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where else? – that she had been drinking and was “in the gutter” at that moment. In Britain her reputation was in tatters, but across the Atlantic her tale of adversity still had any number of takers and it was rumoured that the wealthiest television star in the States had offered the down-at-heel duchess a prime-time chat show on her new Oprah Winfrey Network. Whether any such offer remains on the table after the Epstein scandal is a matter of conjecture. Winfrey is an ardent supporter of personal reinvention, but the Duchess of York’s bankability has limits.

    She may be a royal by marriage but she hasn’t been invited to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton next month, which she might have been able to turn into a nice little earner (on second thoughts, perhaps that’s why she fell off the 1,900-strong guest list).

    “The way Sarah talks now is pure LA psychobabble,” says a source. “People here are flabbergasted that she somehow carries on, lurching from one catastrophe to the next. She’s always complaining about having no money, but then her creditors see her off skiing or holidaying in St Bart’s and it must be terribly galling for them. I’m sure she gets her share of freebies, but even so, she does flaunt her lifestyle even while she complains she can’t afford it.”

    Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, is less damning: “Sarah appears to have lost her centre,” she sighs, although “centre” sounds for all the world like a euphemism for “moral compass”.

    “But as far as the Royal family are concerned, this incident is just a blip; if Andrew has government support and the backing of the Queen – and I don’t think she’s going to ask him to fall upon his sword – then it will all blow over, because life has a habit of doing that.”

    Professor Bill Purdue, visiting reader in modern history at the Open University, remains sanguine about the impact of the Yorks’ scandal on public perceptions of the monarchy. “Junior royals have a tradition of going off the rails slightly,” he says. “Another Duke of York, George III’s son, Frederick Augustus Hanover, otherwise knows as the Grand Old Duke of York from the nursery rhymes, was mired in a major scandal when it was revealed his mistress was selling army commissions.”

    Last month the Royal Opera House raised the curtain on Anna Nicole, a kitschy production that met with critical acclaim. How much more fabulously surreal (not to say extravagantly trashy) would be Fergie: The Musical?

    The Telegraph

     

  • Daughter of Sarah Ferguson in Car Crash

    Daughter of Sarah Ferguson in Car Crash

    PRINCESS BEATRICE has been left shaken after she was involved in a car crash on Monday morning (11Oct10).
    The 22-year-old daughter of Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was driving to study at London’s Goldsmith’s College when her car collided with a bus and a coach.
    princess beatrice
    Beatrice’s BMW was reportedly crushed between the two large vehicles, but the royal was unhurt in the horrific accident.
    A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police says, “Police are aware of a damage-only collision. There were no injuries and no further action will be taken.”
    Last year (09) the same car was stolen when the Princess went shopping and left the keys in the ignition. It was later safely returned to her.

    PRINCESS BEATRICE has been left shaken after she was involved in a car crash on Monday morning (11Oct10).
    The 22-year-old daughter of Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was driving to study at London’s Goldsmith’s College when her car collided with a bus and a coach. Beatrice’s BMW was reportedly crushed between the two large vehicles, but the royal was unhurt in the horrific accident.A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police says, “Police are aware of a damage-only collision. There were no injuries and no further action will be taken.”Last year (09) the same car was stolen when the Princess went shopping and left the keys in the ignition. It was later safely returned to her.

    Daily Star

  • Duchess of York accepts charity award

    Duchess of York accepts charity award

    “I hate grown-ups, and I love children. Thank you very much,” she said.
    Sarah Ferguson Türkiye aleyhtarlığını kışkırtıp arttırmak amacı ile, izinsiz olarak gizlice Türk öksüz ve yetim çocuk bakımevlerine yardımcı olacak hayırsever taklidi ile girmişti. Bu hareketi hem İngiltere hemde Türkiye yasalarina kesinlikle aykırı olarak, çocuklarin gizlilik, mahrumiyet ve kişilik haklarına tecavüz ederek onları filme almıştı, bu filmde ayrıca İngilterede açıkca izinsiz olarak, çocukların ve calışanların yüzleri gösterilerek oynatılmıştı. Bunun için kimden ve nekadar para aldığı henüz bilinmeyen Sarah Ferguson’a bu haftasonu uluslararası ödül veren Variety International’in baskanı ise İngiliz Julia Morley. Hollywood artistleriyle yakın ilişkili olan Variety International’in merkezi, Ermeni Diasporasinin bir numarali merkezi Los Angeles, California da calişmakta.
    Holywood elçileri arasında Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Shirley Bassey, Michael Caine, Vera Lynn ve Nick Faldo da var.

    Şu anda hakkında polis soruşturmasıda olduğu bilinen Sarah Fergusonun bunun içinde rüşvet almış olabileceği büyük olasılık olarak gözüküyor.

    Sarah Fergusonun sevgisinin çocuklardan çok paraya olduğuda hala ortada olmasına rağmen Holywood elitlerinden utanmadan sıkılmadan ödül alması akıllarda birçok soru işareti uyandırdı.

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    160x120 Sarah FergusonBy Jennifer Still

    Sarah Ferguson was on hand to accept an award for her work with a children’s charity on Sunday despite her recent cash sting scandal.
    The Duchess of York admitted at the Hollywood gala that she’d had “quite a heavy day”, reports AFP. Her acceptance speech is said to have been brief.

    “I hate grown-ups, and I love children. Thank you very much,” she said.

    Simon Cowell defended the Duchess, and applauded her passion for turning up at the event.

    Digital Spy

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