Prince Harry has removed himself from Facebook amid privacy concerns highlighted by his naked antics in Las Vegas last week.He is a huge fan of the social networking site and appears under the pseudonym Spike Wells.
But he has now deleted his account after advice from his private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, who is heading an inquiry into the Prince’s trip to Las Vegas.
The Prince is said to be ‘terrified’ further damaging images will emerge and his concerns intensified after photos of an ‘even wilder’ week in the British Virgin Islands on Sir Richard Branson’s private island of Necker shortly before the Vegas weekend were leaked to a newspaper.
They were originally posted on the Facebook page of one of Harry’s friends, to which several hundred people had access.
Harry, 27, has used Facebook for some time and had close to 400 ‘friends’. His page was protected by maximum security settings.
Similar to millions of other users, he used the site to stay connected to his social circle and was updating his page as recently as last week.
Journalists on Sunday has been told that the Prince’s two best friends, Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip, 25, who joined him in Vegas, and Arthur Landon, 30, have also closed their Facebook accounts, as has one of his key Scotland Yard minders. The officer had posted a series of pictures of himself with Harry, whom he refers to in captions as Spike.
With the fall-out from the Las Vegas frolics showing no signs of abating, some of Harry’s friends, who were reported to be on the trip, began to publicly distance themselves from the holiday yesterday.
Although Mr Lowther-Pinkerton’s inquiry will focus primarily on the actions of Harry’s minders, it is understood he was keen to address the ‘Facebook problem’ quickly.
The Prince did not post pictures of himself in Vegas but Arthur Landon uploaded a series of pictures from the Necker holiday on to Facebook.One is a close-up of his suitcase, which contained Captain Britannia and storm trooper costumes, a gas mask and what looked to be a purple bong – a device that can be used for smoking drugs.
Alongside the picture, Landon posted the comment: ‘2x flip-flops, 3x board shorts, 8x fancy dress outfits, 1x toothbrush 10x awesomeness. Let the good times roll, let ’em roll, let ’em roll!!!’ Another picture posted by Landon appeared to show Prince Harry passed out in the sand next to a caption: ‘The perfect start.’ Mr Landon has strongly refuted suggestions that it was one of the Prince’s friends who leaked the damaging Las Vegas pictures.
‘Some have been hinting it was one of his friends who took the pictures,’ he said. ‘But that is absolutely not true. None of his friends would ever do that. We are really careful.’
So far only Mr Landon has publicly commented on the scandal. He also said last week: ‘I obviously think it is really despicable that someone would accept Prince Harry’s hospitality and then take these pictures. I know it has put a real dampener on everybody who was on that holiday.’
The fact that Mr Landon’s personal pictures ended up in a newspaper is said to be the reason all three friends have taken down their profiles.
It is not the first time Harry’s private life has ended up in the papers because of Facebook. In 2009, his then girlfriend Chelsy Davy changed her Facebook status to ‘not in a relationship’ confirming she and the Prince had separated. Prince William was also a fan of the site on which he posed as ‘Wills Wombat Wales’ but he closed the account after it was revealed he was using a pseudonym.
Harry is due to return to RAF Wattisham tomorrow and was this weekend reported to be having a one-to-one with his father Prince Charles, who is said to be very concerned about the embarrassment the pictures have caused the Royal Family.
One of the Prince’s friends told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I know he was in a lot of trouble and had to have a proper meeting with Charles.’
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