IT is astonishing how Royalty manages to sidestep laws that affect everyone else. A matter that is becoming of widespread concern is the capital gains tax paid on homes worth more than £250,000.

Any glance at the property pages of local papers will reveal that homes priced between that and around £500,000 are now not uncommon.

Whether soundly-based or not the capital gains tax was never intended to penalise the home owners of Middle England. Its target was the rich. And so you might think that the sale of Sunninghill Park, the Dallas-style former home of the Duke and Duchess of York, which the Queen had built for them as a wedding present, would deliver a tidy sum to the taxman.

But no. It turns out that ownership resides with the Queen. And, with the Duchess out of the picture as part of her divorce settlement, Her Majesty has arranged to give the proceeeds of the sale, expected to be around £10m, to Prince Andrew.

With a clause requiring him to pay towards the cost of upgrading Royal Lodge, his new home in Windsor Park, the deal is free of capital gains tax and, should the Queen live for a further seven years, the Prince will escape inheritance tax on his net windfall of around £7m. Ah yes, our Royals will always find a way, won't they?

And is it mere chance that an impending change in the law on a quite separate issue will also suit the Royal Family? The expected scrapping of an obligation upon coroners to hold inquests on Britons who die unexpectedly abroad will rule out the need for an inquest on Princess Diana, reportedly opposed by the Royal Family.

Though the Home Office describes the present arrangements as "a burden", the proposed "discretion" that will be given to coroners over whether to hold an inquest could close off a vital avenue of information about dubious deaths. As the law now stands, people have sometimes had to fight for years to get inquests into the controversial deaths of loved ones abroad - and even here for that matter.

The Royal Family is said to believe that an inquest into Princess Diana's death will cause further suffering to the Princes William and Harry, besides allowing Mohammed al Fayed to trumpet his wild theories about the crash. No doubt it is a coincidence that last year the Coroner to the Royal Household (should there be such an exclusive officer?) expressed reservations to the Coroners' Association about the automatic inquests. We can also confidently assume that the Royal Family knows every relevant fact about Diana's death. But, for many, an inquest offers the first real shedding of light - even if deliberately kept dim.

Incredibly, because neither of the two men who were in a car that mowed down 73-year-old Jimmy Mulligan at a Gateshead bus stop would admit to being the driver, the Crown Prosecution Service has ruled that no-one can be prosecuted.

Were no fingerprints found? Be that as it may, I suggest this to CPS: prosecute both men as a test case and, when both deny guilt, see what a jury decides. In the face of such staggering impotence by the law, would you allow a legal nicety or two to frustrate natural justice?