Prince Harry is speaking out after being cleared of bullying charges associated with his charitable leadership.
Britain’s charity regulator said Aug. 6 that it had found no evidence of bullying at a charity set up by Harry but criticized all parties for allowing a dispute to become public. In March, he stepped down as a patron of Sentebale, a philanthropic organization he set up to help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana, following a conflict between trustees and the chair of the board. The chair later accused Harry and others of bullying, racism and misogyny.
“Unsurprisingly, the Commission makes no findings of wrongdoing in relation to” Harry, Sentebale’s cofounder, a spokesperson for Harry said in a statement to USA TODAY.
“They also found no evidence of widespread bullying, harassment or misogyny and misogynoir at the charity, as falsely claimed by the current Chair,” the statement continued. “Despite all that, their report falls troublingly short in many regards, primarily the fact that the consequences of the current Chair’s actions will not be borne by her − but by the children who rely on Sentebale’s support.”
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“Sentebale has been a deeply personal and transformative mission for Prince Harry, established to serve some of the most vulnerable children in Lesotho and Botswana,” the spokesperson added. “With the original mission of Sentebale firmly in mind – and in honour of the legacy he and Prince Seeiso began –The Duke of Sussex will now focus on finding new ways to continue supporting the children of Lesotho and Botswana.”
In its report, Britain’s 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 argued, issuing 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,” Charity Commission CEO David Holdsworth said.
Harry co-founded Sentebale in 2006 in honor of his mother, Princess Diana, nine years after she was killed in a Paris car crash. Sentebale means “forget-me-not” in the local language of Lesotho in southern Africa.
Co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, as well as the board of trustees, joined Harry in leaving Sentebale in March following a leadership dispute with chair Sophie Chandauka, a Zimbabwe-born lawyer who has refused to step down and sued the charity in order to retain her position, according to the U.K.’s The Times.
“Nearly 20 years ago, we founded Sentebale in honor of our mothers. Sentebale means ‘forget-me-not’ in Sesotho … and it’s what we’ve always promised for the young people we’ve served through this charity,” Harry and Seeiso said in a joint statement obtained by United Kingdom news outlets Sky News and The Times at the time.
The princes resigned “in support of and solidarity” with the board of trustees, who had acted in the best interests of the charity in asking the chair to step down, the joint statement said.
“It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation,” the statement continued.
In a statement shared with Reuters at the time, Chandauka said she would continue to perform her role.
“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct,” she said.
She added that underlying the “victim narrative and fiction” that she said had been fed to the media was “the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued.”
Harry, who lives in California with his wife, Duchess Meghan, and their two children, stopped working as a member of the royal family in 2020. He has been heavily involved in causes in Africa for many years and visited Nigeria last year.
Contributing: Reuters; Taijuan Moorman, Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Prince Harry bullying claims dropped after bitter dispute at charity
