Latest / The Front / The intriguing search for legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Transcript

The intriguing search for legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, October 7, 2026. It's the intriguing search for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: one of the world's greatest living explorers, not in the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: brutal Antarctic or the wilds of Africa, but in the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: UK's aged care system. Sir Ranulf Twisselton Wickham Finds, more
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: commonly known as Sir Ranulf Finds, is cousin to the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: actors Joseph and Ralph Fiennes. And according to his friends,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: he's been secreted away in care homes under fake names
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for months, unable to make contact with the world outside. Now,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: after a highly publicised scandal that went as high as
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the King, Fiennes is reportedly living back at his rural
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: property in Shropshire. Today, Europe correspondent Jacqueline Magnet unpacks this
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: captivating drama.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: My name is Randall Fiennes, and the Guinness Book of
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Records has described me as the world's greatest living explorer.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Some of his achievements include being the first person to
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: visit both the North Pole and the South Pole by land,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: as well as being the first person to cross Antarctica
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: on foot, unsupported.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Some of my expeditions over 40 years have taken me
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: to the most remote and lethal parts of this world.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: He has run seven marathons in seven continents after having
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: a heart attack and a heart bypass. Relatives of the
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes say they have not been
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: able to visit or contact him for months. He was
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: last seen publicly two years ago, having revealed that he'd
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: been diagnosed with Parkinson's.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So there's all this backstory going on and intrigue. It's
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: worthy of a novel, but scarily somebody who's very sick
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: is in the middle of it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: Jacqueline Magne is The Australian's Europe correspondent.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: What's happened is that Ran Fiennes is ill and was
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: put in a care home by his second wife. But
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: the second wife has stopped all of his friends from
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: visiting or contacting him. All of his family, including her
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: own son, is unable to visit him. This has caused
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of concern to the extent that Ran's first
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: wife's sister checked herself into the same care home as
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a patient to check on Ran to make sure that
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: he was being well looked after. And she reported that
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: he was lucid and that he was talking to her.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And when this emerged, the wife then moved him to
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: another care home. One of the care homes reported this
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: situation of the wife to the police. There have been
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: reports made to the guardianship board. There have been reports
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: made to the care home association as well. And so
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: all these authorities have been made aware of these concerns
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: about the wife's actions and what might be going on
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: behind the scenes. And yet no one has done anything
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: And this story has exploded now with friends coming forward
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: with stories and situations about how they have been trying
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: to see him to seek reassurance about how he's going.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And that includes King Charles. He had his equerry contact
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the wife and she was exploded in fury to the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: person who provided her phone number. to his majesty. So
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of moving parts in this. Some people say, well,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: the wife is just taking good care of her husband
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: and making sure that he's not upset in any way.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: But the extent of his being shunned away from the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: rest of the world, and even within the care home,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: apparently he's not able to see anybody or no one
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: is allowed to have any interaction with him that that
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: creates enormous concern. And when you have a care home
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: actually worried about what's going on and reporting it, then
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: you have to think that there must be some substance
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: to these allegations.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: There was an incredibly moving story in one of the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: British papers about the director of one of these care
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: homes who took him for a walk in the garden.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It sounds like Rand Fiennes was pushing his own wheelchair
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: as they walked around in the garden, really struggling to
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: pick up his feet and exhausted. And the director of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the care home says, do you want to stop? Do
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you want to sit down and I can push you
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: in the chair? And he said, if you tell me
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I've got to keep going, I'll keep going. So touching
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: this hardy, old style Englishman in this awful situation. What
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: makes it even worse is that he actually seems, according
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to the friend who broke into the care home, she
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: says he's quite lucid.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: That makes it even worse, doesn't it?
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: Well, it does.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And I think people just really want somebody independent to
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: assess what's going on. His wife has guardianship, and so
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: she has complete control over him. And therefore, people are
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: very concerned that she's making really wild allegations. For instance,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: accusing the king of sending over helicopters to try and
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: spot him in the care home ground. And that people
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: have nefarious intentions when they just really want to be
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: reassured about him. And so there's some concern about the
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: wife as well. Is she perhaps acting in the best
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: interests of herself, let alone of Ran? So this is
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: a story that might go on for a little while.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: It's delicate, isn't it? Because it involves... family situations and
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: how much do people get involved in something like this.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: But it has really exploded here. And so I think
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: now any pretense that this was just a minor family
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: matter is not the case.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Ranulph Fiennes' friend, Mike Cobalt, has gone so far as
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to reveal deeply personal information to try to loosen the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: grip of Fiennes' second wife, Louise Millington-Coates.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: He says he knows why the wife has so much
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: control over Ran in that they had an affair when
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: he was still married to his first wife. And he said,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I'm telling this story now so that she no longer
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: has power to tell that story and therefore can release
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Ran from any obligation that he has to keep this secret.
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: I worked overtime for the next four months to basically
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: find convince Ran to get a divorce. And Ran refused
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: to get a divorce forever because he was afraid of her.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: And he said, she's going to blackmail me with the
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: affair that I had with her before Ginny died.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: It's an interesting one journalistically, isn't it, Jack?
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: When I first read the stories, I mean, I could
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: barely look at the photographs of Ran Fiennes. You could
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: see him sort of declining as the years went on.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: We don't have photographs of him in these care homes now.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But to publish the details of someone's medical condition, to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: publish that a famous person now, you know, is in
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: cognitive decline, obviously he can't consent to this material being
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: published and he can't consent to his friends going public.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: It's very delicate, isn't it, for journalists to be waiting
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in here. These must have been very intense conversations in
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the newsrooms. Yes, it was.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And I know that several newsrooms here, one in particular
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: who really desperately broke the story with the friend, they
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: spent months trying to track him down. They spent months
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: going through documents. They spent months on this story before
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: they press publish. And I think that the key issue
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: here was once a care home reports concerns to the police,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: then that goes beyond just a family friend, a bit
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: upset because I can't see Ran, you know, why can't
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I see him? We also have the stepson of Ran,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: also having a crowdfunder to help raise funds for a
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: mission to find his stepfather.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: I don't really believe it's his true choice. I understand
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: that safeguarding spoke to him and he said, I'm happy,
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: et cetera, but I really don't think it's the case.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I think most people now just believe we need to
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: know and we need to be reassured that he is
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: actually getting the care and that he's not so isolated.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: to impact his wellbeing in his final years.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I think if you've had any experience of the aged
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: care system, you know that most of the time people
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: are getting wonderful care from wonderful people and that they're
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: being treated really well. And there's no suggestion here that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: he's being mistreated in these homes, but it's that his
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: wife is potentially having medication administered that he's not actually
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: prescribed or that he's being forced to kind of live
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: without any access to his friends when in fact that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: might not be his wishes. People are so vulnerable once
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: they enter the aged care system. And I mean, this
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: is the case of someone very famous who's got Bear
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Grylls and King Charles publicly calling for more information. If
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: you don't have that, you might never know what's happened
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to a close person who's disappeared into this system.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: No, that's right. In the UK, there is a specific
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: document that once you lose your lucidity and your ability
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: to mentally look after yourself, then this independent government body
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: will appoint somebody as your guardian if you have not
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: already done that through the legal paperwork. So it's unclear
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: at this point whether the wife was appointed as his
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: guardian through a legal process or whether it was done
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: within the the two of them. And of course, that
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: also means she looks after his financial welfare as well.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: That goes hand in hand. So most people are concerned
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: about his health, but of course, others are also concerned
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: about his wealth.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure it'll keep having twists and turns. Thank
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: you very much, Jack.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Jacqueline McNay is The Australian's Europe Correspondent. You can read
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: her reporting on this