Frances Millar

To be frank...

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THE pen is mightier than the sword, but a well-timed photograph could take them both on. An extraordinary moment captured by Reuters photographer Phil Noble last Thursday has become one of the defining images of the age.

Shared millions of times on social media and splashed across front pages around the globe, it shows a devastated Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor slumped in the back of a Range Rover as it pulls away from Aylsham Police Station after an 11-hour grilling.

It had been a long ol' day for the ex-HRH. His 66th birthday started with a surprise arrest at home before he was booked into the cop shop, mugshot and fingerprints taken, just the same as some lowlife who's been nicked for stuffing frozen chickens and bottles of vodka down their joggers in Lidl.

The photo captures him, eyes glazed over, flaring red in the camera flash, hands clasped, a horrified look fixed on his face as if rigor mortis had already set in.

It's the face of a man who sold his soul to the devil, and has only just realised it wasn't enough. Now the devil's come back to take the lot.