⚖️ Michael Fawcett cash-for-honours: £1.5M donor, nobody charged

Michael Fawcett, for decades Prince Charles's right-hand man, stepped aside as chief executive of The Prince's Foundation in September 2021 after the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday reported that he had coordinated support for an honour for the Saudi businessman Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, Sky News reported. The charity confirmed Fawcett had offered to step down temporarily while trustees investigated.

The Sunday Times said Mahfouz was given a CBE by Charles at a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 2016, and that he had donated more than £1.5m to restoration projects close to the prince, including Dumfries House and the Castle of Mey, according to The Guardian's account of the paper's reporting. Mahfouz denies any wrongdoing, per the same report.

The letter

The centrepiece was a letter. The Mail on Sunday published a 2017 letter in which Fawcett reportedly wrote to an aide of Mahfouz, as The Independent reported. The timeline matters: the CBE came first, in 2016, and the letter, dated 18 August 2017 according to that report, talked about what might come next.

"I am happy to confirm to you, in confidence, that we are willing and happy to support and contribute to the application for Citizenship."

Letter reportedly written by Michael Fawcett on 18 August 2017, as published by the Mail on Sunday and quoted by The Independent

The same letter reportedly said the charity was willing to apply to raise the honour from an honorary CBE to a KBE, in response to what it called 'the most recent and anticipated support' of the trust, per Sky News. A spokesperson for Mahfouz told the Mail on Sunday he had ceased his citizenship application and expected no reward for his donations, The Independent reported.

Clarence House, Charles's office, said the Prince of Wales had 'no knowledge of the alleged offer of honours or British citizenship on the basis of donation to his charities', The Guardian reported on 6 September 2021. Fawcett's side of the story is thin on the record: Reuters said in November 2021 that he could not be reached for comment.

The resignation, and the pay-off

On 12 November 2021 the charity said Fawcett had formally resigned, Reuters reported. Clarence House added that the foundation would stop using his events company, Premier Mode, saying 'We have all agreed to end these arrangements.'

The charity's accounts later showed Fawcett was paid £59,582, including £21,923 of holiday pay, on leaving, The Guardian reported in November 2022. The foundation told the Mail on Sunday it does not discuss individual staff salaries or payments.

What the investigators concluded

The charity's own investigation, run by the auditing firm EY, was the first to publish findings. Its summary report, quoted by Third Sector in December 2021, said:

"With respect to the allegation of securing honours for a donor in exchange for donations, there is evidence that communication and co-ordination took place between the CEO at the time and so-called ‘fixers’ regarding honorary nominations for a donor between 2014 and 2018."

EY summary report on The Prince's Foundation, quoted by Third Sector, 3 December 2021

The same summary said there was no evidence that trustees at the time were aware of those communications. It also said Fawcett and another senior employee were involved in directing a transfer of funds from the Mahfouz Foundation to another charity, the Children and the Arts Foundation, without the trustees' knowledge or approval, per Third Sector.

The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry at the beginning of November 2021, but into the Mahfouz Foundation, not The Prince's Foundation, The Guardian reported. The commission said it was examining allegations that donations intended for The Prince's Foundation went instead to the Mahfouz Foundation. The Guardian added that opening such an inquiry is not an indication of wrongdoing. The documents read for this piece do not say how that inquiry ended.

Then the police. The Metropolitan Police announced on 16 February 2022 that it had launched an investigation into alleged offences under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, with no arrests or interviews under caution at that point, per the BBC. A barrister told The Guardian the offence needs an agreement or understanding that an honour would be given in exchange for a donation, that the maximum sentence is two years in prison and/or a £500 fine, and that the evidential bar is high.

Officers interviewed under caution a man in his fifties and a man in his forties on 6 September 2022, and the Met confirmed evidence went to the Crown Prosecution Service on 31 October, The Times reported. On 21 August 2023 the Met said that, 'with the benefit of the CPS's early investigative advice', no further action would be taken, The Telegraph reported. It said officers had obtained court production orders, spoken to witnesses and reviewed in excess of 200 documents, and that nobody had been arrested or charged.

Not everyone was satisfied. Norman Baker, the former Liberal Democrat minister whose complaint triggered the inquiry, told The Telegraph:

"There has never been such an open and shut case. It was there in black and white."

Norman Baker, former Liberal Democrat minister, quoted by The Telegraph, 21 August 2023

The Prince's Foundation said it had noted the Met's decision and was moving forward after its own independent investigation and governance review, per the same report. Buckingham Palace said it had noted the decision and that other enquiries were a matter for the foundation.

The regulator's verdict

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, which opened its inquiry in September 2021, reported in January 2025, Sky News said. After three years it found no evidence of misconduct by the foundation's trustees or by Fawcett, but called it 'unacceptable' that he had not briefed colleagues on issues that had arisen over donations and funding. It also concluded that some of his actions left the charity at 'substantial risk' and that its historical governance 'hadn't always been up to the standard required', per Sky News. Sky added that it understood Fawcett fully cooperated.

So the paper trail ends in an odd place: a letter on record, a charity inquiry that found co-ordination with fixers, a police file that went to prosecutors, and no charge anywhere. MissesSlay notes that a ceremony kept off the public calendar tends to make the paperwork do the talking, and in this case the paperwork has had several readers, each with a different verdict.