Andrew Ritchie (British Army officer)

Ritchie's tenure as Commandant of Sandhurst coincided with the attendance of Princes William and Harry at the academy, but was marred by a series of high-profile security breaches by journalists. In June 2005, a tabloid reporter successfully smuggled a fake bomb into the academy, and also claimed to have filmed footage of Prince Harry in the supposedly secure military compound.[12] The incident prompted a full security review by Defence Secretary John Reid. In August 2005, a journalist for another tabloid was successfully offered a job at Sandhurst despite using obviously fake credentials.[12] A further security incident occurred in January 2006, when the entire camp went into alert over a bomb; it later turned out to be a false alarm caused by a fake bomb made for cadet exercises, which had been fallen off a vehicle and then been found by Ritchie, who then raised the alarm.[12] It was reported in The Daily Telegraph in January 2006 that in the ensuing controversy, Ritchie was saved from being sacked by a personal intervention from Prince Charles, with the Prince of Wales reported to have made "'high-level' phone calls of support" to government ministers and senior officials, and issuing "a hand-written letter" of support for Ritchie.[13] Ritchie resigned as Commandant of Sandhurst in April 2006, resigning from the army shortly thereafter.[12]

Ritchie also had a controversial interview with The Daily Telegraph during his Sandhurst tenure, in which he discussed suitable placements for army officers with the words, "Clearly, if say a regiment plays a lot of polo and you are a rugby player, you probably won't want to go to the polo-playing regiment", before conceding in the same interview, "I rather regret using that example", and stressed that the army was far more accessible today than when he first joined in the 1970s.[14]

After leaving Sandhurst, Ritchie instructed media law firm Harbottle & Lewis, who successfully sued the Daily Mirror on his behalf over a front-page story (subsequently repeated in the Daily Express and The Times) headlined, "Harry's Army Chief quits 'over stress'", and "Fall Out! Exclusive: Sandhurst chief quits job after stress of looking after Princes". The Mirror offered a full retraction, paid an undisclosed sum in damages (Ritchie's writ had been for £100,000 in damages), plus legal costs, and accepted that as an army officer, Ritchie, "has been trained to deal with stress."[15][16][17][18][19] In an interview with Ritchie after his retirement, The Daily Telegraph noted, "There were conflicting reports that 52-year-old Gen Ritchie had either been forced out, or so stressed by the security scare that he opted for early retirement", which Ritchie dismissed as "complete rubbish."[20]