ROYAL Ascot, one of the highlights of the English sporting calendar, was rocked by claims yesterday that racegoers had used cocaine at four locations on the course, including the Royal Enclosure.
The claims overshadowed Ladies' Day, which was attended by the Queen and other members of the Royal Family. Police said that one racegoer had been arrested on suspicion of possessing a class A drug, thought to be cocaine.
Officers were viewing closed-circuit video film of spectators for evidence of drug abuse. Course officials said that anybody convicted of possessing drugs at the meeting would be banned from Ascot for life.
The allegations were made in the London Evening Standard. It sent to a laboratory swab samples of white powder from seven lavatories around the course on Tuesday, the first day of the four-day meeting.
Four samples tested positive for cocaine: one from the women's lavatory in the Royal Enclosure and three from lavatories in the fashionable Paddock area. The Royal Enclosure is usually filled with members of the Royal Family, the nobility and members of rich Arab families.
Security had been stepped up at Ascot after seven people were arrested for drug offences last year. "All staff are being briefed on what to look out for," said Douglas Erskine-Crum, the chief executive of Ascot Racecourse. "It is difficult if someone is doing something like this in a lavatory cubicle.
"The image of sporting and leisure events is bound to be tarnished when this happens. It is not the first time it has happened at Ascot and other events. Drug-taking is fairly symptomatic of all major sporting events these days and is perhaps a reflection on society as a whole."
Seven senior members of the Royal Family - the Queen, Prince Philip, the Queen Mother, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester - arrived at Ascot in the traditional royal carriage procession for yesterday's meeting.
It was the first horse-drawn carriage procession of this year's event, as the carriages and horses had been needed for Wednesday's state opening of Parliament by the Queen.
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Empress speaks of grief for daughter(Electronic Telegraph)
By Patrick Bishop in Paris
THE widow of the Shah of Iran has described her grief after her daughter, Leila, was found dead in a London hotel.
The Empress Farah, who lives in Paris, said Princess Leila was a shy, troubled, sensitive girl who never recovered from the trauma of exile. The princess was discovered this month in the suite she rented permanently in the Leonard Hotel, apparently having died of an overdose.
"An inquiry is under way," said her mother, who was the Shah's third wife. "It will be several weeks before what seems to me to be evident is confirmed: that it was an accident. She was on tranquillisers and prescribed sleeping pills. You can't rule out that she took her medicine forgetting that she'd already had her dose."
Princess Leila, 30, suffered from depression and had withdrawn from friends and family. "She never went out of the hotel. I asked a friend to visit her . . . but she didn't want to see anyone," her mother told Paris Match. "Since 1998 her health had got steadily worse.
"I think it stemmed from all the accumlated weight of what has happened since we left Iran - exile, the loss of her father, whom she adored. Because of all she went through she never found a sense of purpose in life."
Leila was eight when she fled Iran. She was flown to America in an Iranian air force jet, leaving her parents behind to mount a futile attempt to ride out the Islamic revolution that ended nearly 2,700 years of monarchical rule. Her father died two years later.
Since leaving Iran she had travelled between London, New York and Paris. She countered her rootlessness by immersing herself in the literature of her lost land. Leila never married. "She was looking for someone extraordinary, a great love."
The Empress Farah said that since her daughter's death she had received thousands of messages and that people had lit candles outside the old imperial palace in Teheran. "So Leila, who loved her country and loved her father, has in death reunited the Iranians."
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Prince William spends birthday "quietly at home"(Yahoo: Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) - Prince William is celebrating his 19th birthday today "quietly at home".
"He's not doing anything of great importance today and is spending the day quietly at home," a St James's Palace spokeswoman said.
The Prince of Wales will see his son this morning, while his younger brother Prince Harry is at school, the spokeswoman said.
William just returned from a three-and-a-half month trip to Africa. In the autumn he will start a History of Arts course at St Andrews University in Scotland.