Snubbed

London, March 10: Prince Harry tried to buy an iPod music player at a VAT-free store on a US air base in Suffolk where only American airmen are allowed to shop.

The 22-year-old prince, a 2nd lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, used his ministry of defence pass to get on to the Lakenheath base last Sunday with two army colleagues.

Sources said that he was standing in the queue at the checkout when one of his friends was challenged to produce the US identification needed to buy goods. They then decided to leave the BX store run by the US army and Air Force Exchange Service.

The prince and his friends visited the base as they were at the nearby Stanford military training area before their posting to Iraq. Last night it emerged that the shop staff did not recognise the prince, who was in full army uniform.

He and his friends later had a pizza in a restaurant on the base which is home to three squadrons of F-15 fighter-bombers and is the largest US base in the UK.

Lt Col David A Konop, an air force spokesman said: “The girl at the till just did not recognise the prince at all.

“If we had known Prince Harry was in the store, we would have arranged something special with the RAF commander of the base.”

Lt Col Konop said that if the prince had made his presence known he could have bought what he wanted.