LONDON: Britain’s charity regulator said it had found no evidence of bullying at a charity set up by Prince Harry, but criticized all parties for allowing a dispute to become public.
Harry, the younger son of King Charles, co-founded the charity Sentebale in 2006 to help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana.
But he quit as a patron in March following a dispute with the chair of the board, Sophie Chandauka. She accused Harry and Sentebale’s trustees of bullying, misogyny and racism.
Harry had called the falling-out “devastating” and welcomed the commission’s inquiry which he said at the time would “unveil the truth.”
He had set up Sentebale, which means “forget-me-not” in the local language of Lesotho, in honor of his mother Princess Diana, who died in a Paris crash in 1997.
In its report published on Wednesday, the Charity Commission said it found no evidence of “widespread or systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny,” but it said there had been weak governance.
There was a lack of clarity about policies and roles and no proper process to deal with internal complaints, it added, and as such had issued Sentebale with a Regulatory Action Plan to address its concerns.
“Sentebale’s problems played out in the public eye, enabling a damaging dispute to harm the charity’s reputation,” David Holdsworth, CEO of the Charity Commission, said.
Harry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while the charity said that it welcomed the regulator’s findings.
“We are emerging not just grateful to have survived, but stronger: more focused, better governed, boldly ambitious and with our dignity intact,” Sentebale’s chair Chandauka said.
Harry, who lives in California with Meghan and their two children, stopped working as a member of the British royal family in 2020.