To feel sorry for the fake admiral

Nope, no sympathy whatsoever....

I agree with you OP.

I can't believe it was worthy of being on the 6 o'clock news.

She's the appointed head of the various armed forces under her Royal titles. She's part of a history of many hundreds of years. Why shouldn't she?

Plenty of other traditional yet civilian-worn uniforms out there - Lord Lieutenants, Privy Council, Lord Privy Seal and so on.

Stolen Valour is not a victimless crime. The man is despicable.

This is the saddest bit. All the people who valued photos of themselves on such occasions, and he spoils them.

I’d be interested if they did a psych evaluation on him.

It really shows the police and government priorities.

I haven’t been, but have heard about it. A friend’s family have a VC in the family, awarded to her now late Grandpa. He was a very left wing man, member of the Labour Party, and forbade them to sell his VC after he’d died - he even put it in his will. If nobody wanted the responsibility of it, it was to go on display in the local Town Hall. What Ashcroft is doing is just a vanity project, and it’s awful.

I am on a number of naval and military sites and he is having the piss taken out of him in a way you wouldn't believe.

Man's a "Walt" (from Walter Mitty - google him).

Apparently he had a mate with him dressed in an Army uniform.

Do I feel sorry for him? No, I don't. He deserves everything he gets.

All of this. Why would I feel sorry for someone like that?

We let the Royal Family get away with it - remember Anne & her ridiculous dress up costume tendy military complete with plumed hat & cape? I really don't see how that is any different.

Poor MH isn't an excuse unless he is genuinely psychotic and has no idea or control over what he's doing. No doubt there will be low self esteem issues here but he will have known, especially as a history teacher, that what he was doing was categorically wrong. He chose to do it anyway.

Yes humans are complex and there are usually sad reasons why people do bad things but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be held to account for their actions. We all have a responsibility to be good citizens whether our history is complex, whether we suffer MH issues or not.

The forces community are usually pretty quick to weed out bloaters and walts. The quickest and most effective way to do that is ask them their forces number. Nobody who has ever served forgets it.
For those who say its a victimless crime, its actually fraud, and some have wrongly been the beneficiaries of help from forces charities when not entitled . That said, I think a police caution would be adequate, he hasnt robbed or assaulted anyone

And whilst he is a very unpalatable individual Andrew M W saw active service in the Falklands war as a helicopter co-pilot flying as an Exocet decoy.

As disgusting as he is, he did earn what he used to wear.

I think of him as a bit of a saddo along with the others who've done this sort of thing. Similar to those who claim to have been in the SAS - never an ordinary soldier, has to be Special Forces.

It was that over the top array of medals that done for him!

@Glowingup
I’d have more respect for his former teaching career than any army thing tbh.

Staggering point of view unless in the context of Nazi Germany etc.

As a veteran, I have no sympathy.

He didn’t back in 2019 also.

Granted he may have mental health, doesn’t make me sympathetic, if you want to wear the uniform and medals, serve like everyone else.

There are different types of medals... Campaign medals, ones from events like the Jubilee medals.... and ones which are for extreme events, like the DSO or Victoria Cross. The ones you see the Royals wearing are the Event ones, or campaign ones for Harry or Andrew. Then the various "Knight" type ones.

If pke of them started randomly wearing , for example, the George Cross people probably would be offended.

@Alwaystheplusone what an embarrassing post, you you read about the military service and Royal family.

Me too.

And Andrew has been pretending to be an admiral for years.

The only people who should be wearing medals are the people who earned them, or if they are deceased their next of kin.

He’s clearly very unwell. Stolen valour is an odd thing.
Has anyone been to the Imperial War Museum? They had an exhibition of Victoria Cross medals which had been acquired by Lord Ashcroft. If felt odd, his name was everywhere. I wondered what would make you collect all these medals you hadn’t won and display them in a space where your name is the biggest. It’s closed now and apparently Lord Ashcroft wasn’t happy.
Some men are odd about these things.
My dad was a soldier, he never spoke about it and it wasn’t until he died that we found his medals. He would never wear a poppy and despaired of men obsessed with war.

This deluded guy looks like he might have been rummaging in the wheelie bins at Royal Lodge, Windsor 😄

Here we go… You need to do some research and not parrot these prejudices.

KC commanded a RN minesweeper while he was serving in the RN. Most of the others have either active service, or hold honorary rank and perform the duties that come with that.

I take it you don't know that medals are not just issued to military personnel?

Police, Prison Service, Ambulance, Fire all have them, plus all the civilian medals available for other "services" to the country.

No. It is not a victimless crime. Stolen valour is almost traiterous. Parading in medals not earned is despicable and deserves everything and more the court will throw at him. Men and women who died in the service of this country deserve better.

Er, lots of crimes are committed by people who are sad and or/unwell. Doesn't make it deserving of sympathy