The ‘senior adviser’ who negotiated the relationship between the Duke of York and an alleged Chinese ‘spy’ is a semi-professional golfer who has had a relationship with the Royal Family dating back more than 25 years.
Dominic Hampshire, 56, is a former Scots Guardsman who rose to the rank of captain and spent the last three years of his decade in the army as an equerry to the Duke of Kent.
Hampshire has said his role involved “directing the professional life” of the Duke of Kent, and official records show he accompanied HRH – a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II – on royal engagements in the late 1990s in countries including France. , Canada and South Africa.
Hampshire, a married father-of-two from Chalfont St Peter, Bucks, was described in court papers published on Thursday as Prince Andrew’s “adviser” in his dealings with a Chinese official who has been banned from entering the UK for claiming who is a secret agent who collects intelligence on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
But he has long acted as a “fixer” for members of the Royal Family and other “high net worth individuals.”
After leaving the armed forces, Hampshire, who was born in Edinburgh but moved to Africa as a child before entering Cheltenham College, helped set up a travel company, Latitude International. He joined the firm, specializing in the finest holiday hospitality, as director in 2003.
It allowed those with deep pockets to ensure they didn’t have to “check into hotels, go out, worry about paying,” he said in a podcast in 2021.
Hampshire added, referring to his previous experience with the Duke of Kent: “I knew I had a product that worked for our Royal Family and didn’t exist anywhere else.”
Dominic Hampshire was described in court documents released Thursday as Prince Andrew’s “advisor” in his dealings with the Chinese official who was banned from entering the United Kingdom.
Prince Andrew with the alleged Chinese spy is banned from entering the United Kingdom
Hampshire has long acted as a “fixer” for members of the Royal Family and other “high net worth individuals”.
The trips often involved lavish golf holidays and Mr Hampshire, who has even described himself as a “professional golfer” in senior company roles, bonded with Prince Andrew over their shared love of the sport.
He is secretary of the Quad-Centenary Club, which was set up to raise funds for the Royal Blackheath Golf Club in London, of which Andrew was president. He was also ‘tournament director’ of the Duke of York’s under-18s golf tournament, The Young Champions Trophy, which was scrapped following revelations about his relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
It appears that Hampshire was also assisting the duke with other business arrangements.
In February 2019, Hampshire incorporated the company ‘York Investments Global Ltd’, but quickly closed it the following year. In November 2019, Andrew’s Newsnight interview about a car accident was broadcast in which he attempted to justify his much-criticised relationship with Epstein.
In June 2020, Hampshire was behind an unlimited company, Lincelles, named after the 1793 Battle of Lincelles, during which Britain was commanded by the then Duke of York, Prince Frederick. The company was reportedly a trust fund for Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie.
The duke had control of the trust, along with his “friend and private banker” Harry Keogh. In 2018, Keogh left his role at Coutts, the royal bank, amid allegations he had made unwanted advances towards female colleagues. At the time the allegations became public, a friend of Keogh told the Wall Street Journal that he denied them. Another controller was Charles Douglas, a lawyer and partner at London firm CDS Mayfair, who is described as “working closely with private banks, private equity and offshore funds advising high net worth individuals and their corporate entities, domestically and internationally.” “.
Lincelles was dissolved in 2022.
A neighbor of Mr Hampshire said he had no idea of his life in royal circles and instead believed he was a wealthy “city worker”, given his membership at a prestigious golf club.
Hampshire had a relationship with the Royal Family dating back more than 25 years.
“If you had mentioned Prince Andrew and the neighbor, I had no idea, you could knock me down with a feather.”
Another said he was often picked up in cars on his property, while a third said they had spoken to him at a dinner several years ago, but he was coy about his royal connections.
“I understood he was a squire, but I don’t even know what a squire is,” he said.
—I can certainly tell you that at the dinner I attended he did not mention Prince Andrew even once.
“So I think it’s probably very low-key.”
Court documents showed that in March 2020, Hampshire wrote to the alleged Chinese spy about the Duke of York. He said: ‘I also hope it is clear to you where you stand with my director and indeed with his family.
‘The strength of that relationship should never be underestimated. Outside of your closest internal confidants, you sit at the top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.’
There is no indication that Hampshire or the duke suspected the Chinese businessman, known as H6 for legal reasons, of being a spy.
Hampshire, who admitted he was forced to join the military because he didn’t work hard in school, said on the 2021 podcast that his mother always said he was “very lucky to be born with charisma.” But charisma alone is not enough.”
Now the former soldier may be regretting an element of naivety in his dealings with the Chinese “spy.”