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UK attorney general accused of coverup on Queen Mother's will

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, took part in a secret court session which concealed the amount of inheritance tax avoided by the Queen on her mother's death, it was disclosed yesterday.

Lord Goldsmith arranged, with the high court judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss in 2002, that details of the Queen Mother's will should be kept secret. This emerged yesterday after the Guardian successfully applied to open up a private court hearing challenging the secrecy of royal wills.

In a hearing at the high court, Geoffrey Robertson QC was seeking to unseal the wills of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret...

Mr Robertson told the head of the family division, Sir Mark Potter, that there had been a royal cover-up over the wills."A secret, unconstitutional and unlawful practice has grown up of the attorney general going to the court and asking to put royal wills outside the law," he said...

The practice had been invented in 1911 to conceal the will of Prince Francis, King George V's brother-in-law, who had given family jewels to a mistress.

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  • Read entire article at Guardian