Prince Nikolai
Why he could succeed in court after being expelled from school
Alexandra of Frederiksborg and her son Prince Nikolai
© PPE / imago images
Prince Nikolai’s ex-principal revealed he was once expelled from school in the wake of the Herlufsholm abuse scandal. A legal expert now sees the secrecy law violated.
On May 8, 2022, the former rector of Prince Nikolai, 22, dropped a small bombshell on the Norwegian TV channel “TV 2 Øst”: In the course of the abuse scandal surrounding the Nobel boarding school Herlufsholm, which is also Queen’s grandson Margrethe, 82, from 2014 to 2018, Klaus Eusebius Jakobsen divulged that the prince had once been expelled from school for several days.
The Court reacted in no uncertain terms and would have preferred to keep this incident confidential. The current headlines should also be more than uncomfortable for Nikolai. According to the tabloid magazine “BT”, a Danish law professor now thinks it is likely that Nikolai would have a pretty good chance of going to court if he wanted to file a lawsuit against his ex-principal.
Prince Nikolai: Is he bringing charges against his ex-rector?
Jakobsen actually wanted to defend the scandalous elite school that he ran from 1993 to 2016 to “TV 2 Øst”. On May 5, 50 former students from Herlufsholm described terrible scenes of systematic violence and sexual abuse in a TV documentary.
In the course of this, the school management was accused of holding hands over students from the upper classes of society, which Klaus Eusebius described as a “myth”. He also had an example ready and came to the prince’s expulsion from school for illegal alcohol consumption – an actually confidential matter between him, Nikolai and his parents Prince Joachim, 53, and his ex-wife Alexandra von Frederiksborg, 57. Exactly this fact Hanne Marie Motzfeldt believes that this could be the ex-rector’s undoing if Nikolai decides to go to court.
Expert sees “secrecy law violated”
The professor of administrative law at the University of Copenhagen says the royal family and Prince Nikolai would have a “good case” to file a lawsuit against the former rector of Herlufsholm.
“The principal has a problem. I would say that [der Vorfall] falls under the Secrecy Act and this was probably violated here,” says Motzfeldt. The professor also explains that Prince Nikolai is a public person, but still has a right to privacy.
“It’s important that the parents have a private room where they can talk to the teachers without the public being there,” says Hanne Marie Motzfeldt, emphasizing: “Of course, this also applies to members of the royal family.”
It remains to be seen whether there will actually be a process.
Sources used: bt.dk, Dana Press, tv2east.dk, ekstrabladet.dk