Prince William was in Aberdeen late last week to check in on his big Homewards program. Homewards is basically the Royal Foundation handing out money to various homeless shelters, only instead of just highlighting the work of those shelters, William wants credit for being the savior of homeless people and he spent months centering himself in the issue. Homewards was launched in June 2023, and William’s visit last week was supposed to be a “one year later” check-in (only it was 15 months later). While he was in town, William hosted a Homewards event at a controversial venue. How controversial? Well, the headlines have “Prince William” and “cocaine” together.
Prince William has been slammed after hosting an event at a Scottish venue with close ties to a well-known convicted drug dealer. The heir to the throne held talks at the Union Kirk in Aberdeen city centre as part of a promotional push for his anti-homelessness project Homewards – despite the venue’s links with cocaine dealer Paul Clarkson.
Clarkson is the son of Portugal-based publican Stuart Clarkson, who owns a number of boozers in the granite city, including the Union Kirk. Paul Clarkson was in April this year ordered to pay back the £65,000 he was accused of making in profit from pushing the Class A drug, of which the courts said he had paid back £40,000.
In December 2021, he was sentenced to eight months in prison after being caught with more than £1600 worth of cocaine – which he claimed to have been selling to fund his own habit – at a lockdown-busting party at one of his dad’s venues, the Draft Project. Documents show Aberdeen City Council received scores of complaints about the venue, with the Clarkson family blamed for encouraging lockdown breaches when Covid was still rife.
One furious Aberdeen local told the Sunday National he thought it was “absolutely disgusting” William had visited the Union Kirk last week, owing to its ownership by the Clarkson family.
He said: “Even the local bobbies were disgusted. Terrible message to send to people.”
Graham Smith (below), head of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, said the visit called into question Prince William’s judgement. He said: “Prince William’s homeless project has been all show and little substance from the start. So it doesn’t surprise me that he hasn’t bothered to do some due diligence on who he’s working with. This obviously raises questions as to what money was paid for the use of the facilities and what kind of operation William is backing when the people involved have less than stellar reputations. There must be lots of other venues and charities that could have hosted the event. Why did he choose that one?”
Another Aberdeen resident quipped: “With Charlie being his dad, it makes perfect sense for Prince William to visit.”
I found this slightly confusing – from what I gather, Stuart Clarkson (the father) is the one who owns the pubs and venues, and Stuart Clarkson’s son Paul Clarkson is the one who went to prison for dealing coke. Stuart Clarkson is also being accused of allowing his pubs and venues to be used during the pandemic to flout social-distancing and lockdown rules, and Paul was caught in one of his father’s pubs with all of that cocaine. It sounds like the dad owns the pubs and lets his son deal out of them. Wonder how these establishments got on William’s radar, huh? I mean, I could very easily come up with explanations for why William shouldn’t catch a lot of heat for this, but think about what the British media would do if Harry and Meghan hosted an event at a venue owned and operated by a coke dealer and his dad.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.