A KENT MP has called for the Queen to explain her actions in connection with the trial of former Royal butler Paul Burrell.

Mr Burrell, 44, who was butler to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, was sensationally cleared of stealing items belonging to his former employer after the Queen revealed he had told her of his intention to keep some papers.

Her late intervention, just before Mr Burrell was due to give evidence in court, has led to a whispering campaign about a Royal cover-up.

Bob Marshall Andrews, Labour MP for Medway and himself a QC, believes it is in the palace's best interests to explain its actions in a statement and quash the rumours.

He said: "The timing of the Queen's intervention was very bad from a PR point of view. There have been a lot of quite reasonable questions asked about why the palace behaved in this way. The Palace would do itself a lot of favours if it released a statement about why this happened."

Mr Marshall-Andrews' Labour colleague Dennis Skinner has written to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine accusing the Queen of withholding information.

Mr Skinner will also ask for the Royal family should be held responsible for the £1.5 million cost of the aborted trial.

But Mr Marshall-Andrews said: "Although it is a great pity that the Queen did not come forward with the evidence much earlier, she was not under any obligation to give evidence. The first place to look to find out where things went wrong is the Crown Prosecution Service."

He added: "Mr Burrell mentioned his meeting with the Queen in his defence statement and it was the prosecution's duty to investigate this. I don't think this issue raises any major constitutional or legal questions."

Buckingham Palace has repeated its original statement in response to critical comments, saying "the investigation and the decision to prosecute Paul Burrell was entirely made by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service".