Royal wedding guest jailed for a week in Barbados after gun part is found in his luggage

A friend of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was arrested at an airport for having a pistol barrel in his luggage and locked up for a week in a notorious jail.
High-society interior designer James Archibald – who was a guest at the Royal Wedding – was held when his bag set off metal-detectors in Barbados.
He had touched down to change planes on his way back to the UK from Mustique – where just weeks before he had been among wealthy villa-owners to welcome William and Kate on their ‘babymoon’.
Mr Archibald, 50, a longtime friend of the Duchess’s family, had dis-assembled the air pistol barrel before putting it in a locked case.
He tried to convince staff that  it could not be fired but was remanded to HMP Dodds, a razor-wired compound on the former colony, which featured in a reality TV show on ‘the world’s toughest jails’.

He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It was just the barrel of an air pistol that I use for target-shooting.
‘I rather naively assumed that since it was not operational, and it was in my locked luggage, it wouldn’t be an issue. But under  Barbados law, they rate even a part of a firearm as a weapon.’

Mr Archibald, who had been travelling with his wife Nicki, spent a week in a cell before appearing before a magistrate and pleading guilty to carrying a firearm in a public place ‘without lawful authority’. He was fined £1,660.

James Archibald was a guest at the royal wedding in 2011. He also recently attended the couple's 'babymoon'

Asked about his time behind bars, he said: ‘At first, there was a hostile atmosphere. There was even thought that I might be an undercover drug enforcement agent.
'But I made a couple of friends. I’d never seen the inside of a prison before. I won’t forget it. There’s no way that I want a repeat performance.’
The couple own a sumptuous five-bedroom villa on Mustique, known as Tanama, the Arawak Indian for ‘butterfly’. In 1999, Mr Archibald set up an office on the island, which was founded by Lord Glenconner, a close friend of Princess Margaret.

The exotic island of Mustique where Archibald had been enjoying a holiday

His company, James Archibald Designs, has refurbished or built more than half of the mansions on Mustique, including several where William and Kate have been entertained during their holidays there.

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