Sheikh Mohammed banned from buying Windsor Great Park estate 

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum has been effectively banned by a court from buying an estate thought to be the most expensive plot in Britain. In a judgment handed down in December but made public yesterday, High Court judge Sir Andrew McFarlane banned the sheikh from buying or renting any property within 100m of his ex-wife’s home. The decision effectively bars the sheikh, who is prime minister of the UAE, from acquiring Parkwood Estate, a 77-acre site that borders Castlewood House, the home of Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein. The property injunction is part of a non-molestation order issued by the family division of the High Court. According to the ruling, the princess pursued the order because she had “become aware” that the sheikh, or trustees of the family trust, “was in the final stages of agreeing the purchase of a substantial estate which immediately abuts the [princess’s] family home in Berkshire”. Her application sought to “prohibit [the sheikh], or those acting on his behalf, from proceeding with the acquisition of an interest whatever in that property or land whose boundary falls within a widely drawn zone in the locality of [the princess’s] property”, as well as “activity near her property either on the ground or in the air”. Granting the application, the judge said in his ruling that the need to stop the sheikh from buying property nearby or flying over Castlewood House was “established”. He pointed out that when the sheikh’s daughter Sheikha Shamsa was abducted in Cambridge in 2000, she was driven to one of his properties in Newmarket before being taken by helicopter to France and then flown to Dubai. “There has been widespread publicity of… the fact that the mother and children [the princess and her children] are being protected from the possible risk of abduction,” said the judge. The ruling is part of a bitter legal battle between the sheikh and the princess, who have two young children. More than 10 judgments, spanning eight months of litigation, have been made public this week. These included civil findings that associates of the sheikh spied on his ex-wife and her legal team, by using Pegasus spyware to hack their phones. The sheikh denies the allegations. Image © Amr Nabil/AP/Shutterstock