Mail Online

Lady Susan’s church has mostly black congregation

By Natasha Livingstone

THE QUEEN’S former ladyin-waiting accused of racism is a devoted member of a church with a ‘90 per cent black congregation’.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Lady Susan Hussey has long attended St Agnes Church in Kennington, an ethnically diverse area of South London.

Lady Susan, 83, resigned as one of the Ladies of the Household at Buckingham Palace after being accused of ‘interrogating’ Ngozi Fulani, of the domestic abuse charity Sistah Space, about her heritage at a function on Tuesday.

Now the congregation at St Agnes has rallied around Lady Susan and dismissed the claim that she is guilty of racial prejudice.

John Vaughan, a regular worshipper, told the MoS: ‘Susan doesn’t have a racist bone in her body. I would absolutely insist on that.

‘Everyone in the congregation, from all ethnic backgrounds, gets on extremely well with her. Watching her have coffee with people after services you see her as she really is – a nice, gentle, friendly woman.’

Mr Vaughan said the speed with which the Palace had ‘dumped’ Lady Susan following her controversial conversation with Ms Fulani was ‘very troubling’. ‘Susan had a lifetime friendship with Queen Elizabeth,’ he added.

‘Then, suddenly, after one conversation that was obviously a mis-understanding, she has been unceremoniously dumped.’

One black female worshipper at St Agnes, who preferred not to be named, said yesterday: ‘She is not a racist person, not in any way. She is a lovely, beautiful lady, and everybody in that church will say the same thing.’ Another source close to the church described the congregation as ‘90 per cent black’ and insisted Lady Susan was ‘not racist’.

The revelations come as friends of the former lady-in-waiting suggested deafness may have played a role in the fateful exchange. ‘Like many people of her age, Lady Susan is rather hard of hearing,’ one told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s likely that her deafness contributed to the problems she had that day.’

It has been previously reported that Lady Susan, the widow of ex-BBC chairman Marmaduke Hussey, has since offered to personally meet Ms Fulani and apologise to her.

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2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

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