No event experienced by the Royal Family has been more poignant than the 1979 murder of Lord Mountbatten, who was the victim of a 50-pound IRA bomb as he and members of his family went lobster fishing off the north-west coast of Ireland.
But there seems little chance that the late Earl – King Charles’ beloved great-uncle – will rest in peace. For I can reveal that the producers of a Channel 4 documentary – which claims Mountbatten was embroiled in a notorious sex abuse scandal – have themselves become victims of a series of disturbing events.
One of the producers, Des Henderson, explains that the programme, Lost Boys: Belfast’s Missing Children, is about the city’s Kincora Boys’ Home, which he says has ‘no doubt that Mountbatten is connected’.
Claims: Producers of a Channel 4 documentary – which alleges Lord Mountbatten was embroiled in a sex abuse scandal – have themselves become victims of a series of disturbing events
One of the producers, Des Henderson, explains that the programme, Lost Boys: Belfast’s Missing Children, is about the city’s Kincora Boys’ Home (pictured), to which he says ‘there is no doubt that Mountbatten is associated’.
While interviewing people, Henderson received two threatening phone calls at his office. One warned him to be ‘careful’; the other was more explicit. ‘[The caller said]: ‘I really want to warn you not to investigate these things. Anything can happen if you dig too deep.”
The following week, Henderson returned to his home, a remote building close to the northeast coast of Northern Ireland. There had been a burglary.
He doesn’t think it was an opportunistic break-in. “They drove through a narrow alley behind my house, into a field, and climbed over my back wall,” says Henderson. The intruders ‘looted’ the house. Yet only one thing was taken.
“A desktop computer,” says Henderson, who, after reporting the burglary, told a local farmer. “He said there’s never been a burglary in his life.”
None of this surprises one contributor to the documentary, literary agent and author Andrew Lownie, who says government agencies have been monitoring him since he began investigating Mountbatten.
“They’ve been following applications I’ve submitted,” he tells me at Wimbledon BookFest, “and lawsuits I’ve been involved in.”
He added: ‘It has taken Channel 4 years to get this documentary off the ground. I’ve been talking to them since 2019 and they get nervous and withdraw. “It is only because one of Mountbatten’s victims is taking a case to the High Court in Belfast that they are now encouraged to continue.”
Prince Charles with Lord Louis Mountbatten during a polo match with a pint of beer in hand