Diana’s brother Earl Spencer says their nanny used to ‘crack our heads together’ when they were young children as he opens up about his childhood with the princess

Princess Diana’s brother has revealed that their childhood nanny would ‘smash our heads together’ when the pair were naughty as he opens up more about his childhood.

Charles Spencer has claimed in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg that the violence would not just be ‘a tap on the wrist’, but a ‘crunchy crunch’ that ‘really hurt’.

The earl also revealed in devastating detail the sexual abuse and horrific beatings he suffered at Maidwell Hall boarding school in the 1970s, published in his memoirs this week.

Although he remained firm in his defense of his parents, he highlighted that this showed the ‘disconnect’ between parents and children in these privileged families.

‘It was just normal. You leave it to the nanny to take care of this,” he said.

In the interview, due to air today, he also revealed that his older sisters had been filled with laxatives as punishment from another nanny.

“Another nanny punished them by pouring laxatives into them and my parents couldn’t figure out why they were constantly sick,” he said.

The earl made it clear he did not blame his parents: ‘They did their best, as 98 per cent of parents do’, lamenting that they ‘didn’t know’.

In his memoir, ‘A Very Private Book’, Charles described how he attended Maidwell Hall between the ages of eight and 13 in the 1970s.

In the book, published on March 14, Charles reveals how he was molested by a female assistant matron aged 11 at the prep school in Northamptonshire.

Charles describes her abuser as a ‘grey pedophile’ and claims she preyed on him and other young boys, grooming and abusing them in their dormitories at night. The pre-school has now reported itself to the council following Earl Spencer’s claims.

During his interview with the psychotherapist, Charles said the school ‘sew demons into the skins of souls’ of abuse victims, making them feel ‘they were responsible’ for what had happened.

The earl explained how he was only able to process the trauma when he tried a new form of therapy called the Hoffman Process – which aims to address negative patterns of behaviour.

He explained: ‘That crown fell for me in my early 40s when I went to do a thing called the Hoffman Process, which is really about looking at your childhood and letting go of your childhood.

“And I mentioned my years at Maidwell as a kind of sideshow actually to the therapist who was in charge of me.”

During the session, the therapist asked Charles to tell him one thing he had never confided in anyone before.

Diana’s brother continued: ‘I told him I had been sexually abused as a child and then we got into the whole subject of Maidwell.’

Later in the session, the therapist told Earl Spencer that the way he described the Maidwell headmaster made him believe he had seen him as a ‘surrogate father’.

Maidwell Hall in Northamptonshire said the allegations were difficult to read and had been referred to the local authority’s designated officer.

They said: ‘It is sobering to read about the experiences Charles Spencer and some of his fellow alumni had at the school and we are sorry that was their experience.

“It is difficult to read about practices which, unfortunately, were sometimes considered normal and acceptable at the time. In education today, almost every facet of school life has evolved significantly since the 1970s. At the heart of the changes is the protection of children and the promotion of their welfare.’