Royal blackmailer spills the beans to Hot Press

Ian Strachan was jailed last year for attempting to blackmail a member of the British Royal Family with video tapes he claimed featured a Royal aide openly indulging in sex and drugs, and boasting about gay sex acts with a prominent member of the Royal Family.

In an in depth Hot Press interview, published today, Strachan has exclusively revealed that he has over eight hours of incriminating footage – recorded surreptitiously – which he claims features an aide to Princess Margaret’s son, Viscount David Linley, who is twelfth in line to the British throne.

A UK media blackout has ensured that little of the substance of this case was reported, so this is Strachan's first tell-all interview, available in full only to Irish readers. Hot Press has obscured the names of affected parties in our UK edition to reflect the wishes of the London courts.

Speaking to Hot Press' Jason O'Toole, Strachan says he regularly socialised with Viscount Linley, and has caught revealing discussions on tape, including talk of Princess Diana's alleged murder.

He also claims to have filmed discussions on the real cause of Princess Margaret's death – which he alleges was not a stoke, but HIV contracted from a gangster with whom she had enjoyed a relationship.

Although the original media focus was on the sex acts Strachan says he caught on tape, he insists there's many more shocking facts that have yet to see the light of day: “When the story came out it was all about the sex act and that was only a very small point in the tapes, to us. There was more shocking and probably damaging stories concerning basically nearly every senior member of the Royal Family.”

Strachan says he met many members of the Royal Family and gleaned startling bits of information, including a story about the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret.

"There was a big thing about when she burnt her feet in the bath and she blamed the maid. The actually story was: she was out of her face on valium and gin – as she usually was."

The interview offers a fascinating and highly entertaining insight into the champagne, cocaine and sex lifestyle of those in and around the Royal circle. It also reveals the extraordinary ways in which Strachan, as he put it to O'Toole, "sailed close to the wind" living it up in London - including his deal-making with newspapers who wanted to buy the Royal story.

Strachan was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted with Sean McGuigan, an Irish ex-pat living in London. Both protest their innocence of the blackmail charges.

Read the full interview in the new Hot Press, out today!

To order a copy of Hot Press with the full Ian Strachan interview, click here.