Top-secret medical records belonging to Prince Charles and Diana found stuffed in £10 cabinet on an industrial estate
In a huge royal security breach, the confidential documents from the 1980s and 90s were found down the back of a cabinet drawer on an industrial estate in Wales
PRIVATE medical records of Charles and Diana have been found in a £10 filing cabinet — in a huge breach of royal security.
The documents, tucked inside two folders, were carelessly stuffed in a drawer of the unit which was due to be sold second-hand to a tool firm.
The records were kept by dermatologist Dr Peter Copeman, who saw the royal couple in the 1980s and 90s.
They include a heartfelt note from the late Princess thanking the doctor.
The files lay abandoned for years until Maggie Lidiolo cleared the cabinet for her partner, office furniture boss Steve Williams.
Maggie said: “I’m flabbergasted. They could have been used for dark purposes in the wrong hands.
“I assumed it was a wind-up or forgery at first but it quickly became clear that these were the real thing.”
“It’s unbelievable to think this kind of security blunder could involve some of the most famous people on the planet.”
Mum-of-three Maggie, 30, contacted The Sun on Sunday after the find on a industrial estate in Bridgend, South Wales, last Monday.
And yesterday we delivered them back to Clarence House, Charles’s London home.
His spokesman thanked The Sun on Sunday for handing them over.
But questions were being asked last night how they were allowed into the public domain.
At the time Sir George Pinker was the royal doctor and Sir John Batten was physician to the Queen, both of whom would have been in liaison with Dr Copeman. There is no suggestion they were at fault.
Mystery surrounds how the files were left unsecured with those of 20 other clients at Dr Copeman’s private practice.
The most likely scenario is his staff accidentally left them in the cabinet during an office clear-out.
Another theory is they were lost when Dr Copeman’s practice moved from Sloane Street, West London, to another street in central London about 15 years ago.
Charles and Diana’s notes were at the back of the second drawer behind the rest of the clients’ to keep them from prying eyes.
Maggie, a dental nurse from Port Talbot, South Wales, added: “I was helping Steve and gave the cabinet the once over when I found the files and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
“I wanted to do the right thing and so rang the paper to ensure they got back to the royal family. I didn’t read the medical details.”
Steve, who co-owns Office Furniture Wales (GB), has no idea how he ended up with the royals’ health history.
He said: “That filing cabinet was probably in my warehouse for months.
“It was a battered old thing and I’m surprised anyone wanted it. We bought them in a batch of four and they were worth about a tenner each.
We buy and sell office furniture every day from all over the place, including central London, so I have no idea where that particular cabinet came from.
“We don’t keep a strict record and have hundreds of them any one time.
“Often we are asked to take furniture away when clearing an office, or we will pick up cabinets, chairs and tables from eBay.
“We have no record where this came from, it’s a mystery.
“It is surreal to think that a treasure trove of medical secrets of Charles and Diana was sat in my depot.
“I’m glad we can ensure the royal family’s files remain confidential.”
The royal couple’s wedding in July 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral was watched by a global TV audience of 750 million. Charles and Di separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
He married Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in 2005.
Internationally acclaimed consultant Dr Copeman, 84, retired in 2014.
He told The Sun on Sunday last night: “Thank you for returning these.”
He has an identical filing cabinet to the one that held the royal documents in the study of his £5million home in Wandsworth, South West London.
He added: “Some time ago we had a call about making sure we destroy these records and I thought we had done so.
“We had a big bonfire about ten years ago, but we must have missed these.
“We had to put bars on our office windows at one point due to the sensitive nature of the records we kept.
“I have no idea how this has happened or when the filing cabinets were moved on.”
The abandoned records of the non-royal patients, whose surnames all began with ‘W’, like the Windsors, were stuffed at the back of the second drawer.
It raises the prospect that the last few documents filed in alphabetical order had mistakenly been left behind.
The other files found with Charles and Diana’s belonged to patients based across the UK and as far afield as Portugal, Spain and the Caribbean.
The Sun on Sunday has also ensured their confidential records remain protected.
Sir George Pinker, who died in 2007, became surgeon gynaecologist to the Queen in 1973.
He delivered nine royal babies, including Peter and Zara Phillips, at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London.
He also treated Princess Diana after she fell downstairs at Sandringham when she was pregnant with William.
Dr Copeman penned over a hundred peer-reviewed articles reporting original research from his own laboratory work and that of clinical teams he managed.
These included general medical as well as dermatological subjects.
Dr Copeman pioneered research on allergic vasculitis — extreme reaction to a drug or infection — which is now considered common medical knowledge.
He was a leader in the introduction of techniques involving light and electrons in microscopy to vastly improve dermatological research.
And he spent considerable time researching the genesis of malignant melanoma.
Sir John Batten, who pioneered treatment for adults with cystic fibrosis, died in 2013 aged 89.
He served as physician to the Queen from 1974 to 1989, and cared for her and her immediate family.
The security blunder is the latest to embarrass the royal family.
Last month the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa Middleton had a haul of 3,000 private pictures stolen from her iCloud account, including intimate snaps of the royals and her naked fiancé.
The Sun alerted palace officials when they were offered for sale.
In 2003 prankster Aaron Barschak sneaked past security to gatecrash Prince William’s Africa-themed 21st birthday bash at Windsor Castle.
Barschak leapt on stage as the Prince was making a speech and was bundled away by bodyguards.
In 2012 William, then a flight lieutenant, was snapped by royal photographers at RAF Valley making his bed and drinking a cuppa.
Computer usernames and passwords were visible in the snaps and MoD staff were forced to change login details for scores of staff.
This August security experts blasted Princess Eugenie for tipping off terrorists about her daily movements.
She told a magazine which gym she went to, where she would be at times of day and what streets she walked down.
In 1982 Michael Fagan broke into the Queen’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace before police were called to take him away.