Queen Quietly Strips Honours from Disgraced Recipients

Queen quietly strips honours from disgraced recipients.

IT appears that the Queen has been stripping honours from numerous disgraced recipients in a process which has been termed secretive. Last year alone nine people saw their honours rescinded. The 2020 annulled honours included Mark Adams, a former Downing Street aide who has been convicted of the rape of two women. Last year also saw Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood director have his honours annulled too.

According to the Cabinet office, most of the decisions are made public and they said, “The vast majority of forfeiture decisions are published – including those relating to child sex abuse,

“Any exceptions to this reflect broader duty of care considerations.”

The Times set out to investigate the matter and found that in the past 10 years 70 people have seen their honours “cancelled and annulled” and the annulments appeared to be for a variety of reasons.

The management of titles is handled on the Queen’s behalf by the Cabinet Office which includes a forfeiture committee. The committee though does not always explain why an honour has been revoked.

Elizabeth Yardley, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University has explained how she feels that if an honour is to be revoked, then the public deserve to know the reason. Yardley said, “I think [the committee] should be more transparent.

“If there’s sufficient evidence to say that this person is not deserving of this honour then surely it’s in the public interest to know that” as reported by The Times.

The majority of annulments have been due to child sex abuse, and according to Inews a grand total of 186 people, have seen their honours annulled during the Queen’s reign.