Let us imagine, for a moment, that Dubai's autocratic ruler Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum was not a long-standing friend of the Queen and the Royal Family and that his oil-rich kingdom did not prop up the British horse racing industry.
Would he still receive the special access he has enjoyed thanks to his vast wealth and philanthropy – and as a key ally of the United Kingdom – while shamelessly riding roughshod over our laws?
For more than two years, the royals have had to endure the excruciating spectacle of details of Sheikh Mohammed's cruel and vindictive behaviour towards his estranged wife Princess Haya being played out in the High Court.
At the same time came disturbing allegations of his scant regard for human rights, in kidnapping two of his own daughters – one from the streets of Britain – who had fled their homeland to escape their brutal father.
Let us imagine, for a moment, that Dubai's autocratic ruler Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum was not a long-standing friend of the Queen (both pictured)
But the revelations that the man who has been photographed in the Royal Box at Ascot and shared a carriage drive with the Queen down the famous course also sanctioned an illegal phone hacking operation on British soil to snoop on his wife and her lawyers, who include a Conservative peer, go far beyond mere embarrassment.
They have triggered a potential crisis in Britain's bilateral relationship with the United Arab Emirates, of which the sheikh is both vice president and prime minister.
Court documents released yesterday have revealed the extent of the illicit surveillance operation targeting Princess Haya – who ran away to London after a loaded pistol was menacingly left on the pillow of her bed – as well as her personal staff and her legal team, headed by the eminent solicitor Baroness (Fiona) Shackleton.
Lady Shackleton, who acted for the Prince of Wales in his divorce from Princess Diana, reported the hacking to Black Rod, the Queen's representative in the House of Lords, after learning that her 'Parliamentary email, my own email, my WhatsApp messages, my pictures and my texts are all visible to somebody else'.
The hacking is said to have broken at least five British laws but the compromising of 65-year-old Lady Shackleton's parliamentary account was being viewed as tantamount to an attack on UK sovereignty.
In a bizarre twist, Lady Shackleton was alerted to the hack by Cherie Blair on instructions from her client.
The royals have endured the details of Sheikh Mohammed's cruel behaviour towards his estranged wife Princess Haya (pictured with the Queen in 2009) being played out in court
If he was not a friend of the Queen's, would he still receive the special access he has enjoyed thanks to his vast wealth? Pictured: Sheikh Mohammed's beach palace complex in Dubai
Mrs Blair is the QC wife of former Prime Minister Tony, who represents the secretive Israeli-owned high-tech company which makes the military-grade Pegasus spyware used by Dubai's intelligence services.
Last night the irony that, in alerting her fellow lawyer, Mrs Blair was the whistleblower was not lost on all parties in this increasingly murky case.
For it was under the Blair government two decades ago that the Foreign Office shut down a police investigation into the abduction and drugging of Sheikh Mohammed's daughter Shamsa from Cambridge.
The cyber-hacking was just one element of a sophisticated spying operation that included the billionaire sheikh attempting to buy a £30million property next door to Haya's Berkshire bolthole, where she lived with the couple's two children.
This, the court was told, made the princess feel 'hunted and haunted' in her 12-bedroom mansion, Castlewood House – once the home of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York.
When she asked the judge to impose an 'exclusion zone' around the house to prevent her husband from stalking her, the sheikh brazenly sought to exploit his royal connections by complaining such an action would impede his access to Windsor Castle and Ascot, the racecourse owned by the Queen.
The historic ties of friendship between the House of Windsor and Sheikh Mohammed, who once cultivated an image as a progressive Arab leader, underpinned Britain's relations with the UAE. They now threaten to undermine them.
Racing and a shared love of horses have long cemented the family ties between the Windsors and the Maktoums.
Twelve years ago Sheikh Mohammed
