A “super-recogniser” says she has debunked the myth that King Charles is not Prince Harry’s dad - because they have the same eyes and forehead. Simone Malik, who says she has a gift for recognising faces, says she is sure they are father and son because they have the same distinctive, sharp eyes and a narrow and high forehead.
She says she has never seen anyone else with the same “very close set, small but extremely sharp eyes” apart from the King and the Duke of Sussex. The 42-year-old decided to speak out following the release of Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Netflix series during which they have made a series of controversial claims about the royal family and household.
She believes now is the time to showcase her skill to debunk a theory which claims the King, is in fact not Harry’s birth father.
Comparisons have often been made between Harry and James Hewitt, who share the same ginger locks, but Ms Malik says they do not share many other features. She explained: “I have been hearing for years that conspiracy about Hewitt being Harry’s dad.
“I always looked and thought ‘no, not at all.’
“I can see from the public’s perspective when they look at the ginger hair and their smiles from the side, they have a certain look and they think he is Harry’s dad. As a super-recogniser I can see beyond that.
“You have got to understand facial symmetry and dimension and this is what I look at, a bit like a computer but I have the skill to see the face and think ‘this person is related’ or ‘this person is not related.’
“I am quite certain from my skill that King Charles is definitely Harry’s dad. Charles has a narrow and high forehead and Charles has exactly that. Diana also has a narrow forehead. Hewitt’s forehead is wide and deep.
“Also the eye area is very distinctive with Harry which is exactly like Charles. King Charles has very close-set, small but extremely sharp eyes. I am actually yet to see a pair of eyes like that in the general population.
“The only other person I have seen with this exact same quality- in terms of size, close set and extreme sharpness, is Prince Harry. If you look at Dianna she has round eyes which are quite wide and big. Hewitt also has wide eyes.
“Where has Harry got those eyes from? Not Hewitt, not Diana, he has got them from his father.”
She said sometimes people can look like each other and not be related but she is ’99 to 100 per cent sure’ King Charles and Prince Harry are related because they share the very distinctive eye features. She added: “Charles’ eyes are very distinctive and that is the kind of feature that would be passed from generation to generation.
“This is a very distinctive feature in the eye area a bit like a sharp eagle.”
Ms Malik identifies as a “super recogniser”, someone who has extraordinary face recognition capabilities, which is a skill that its supporters say can’t be taught. Agency Super Recognisers International, which works with people purporting to have the gift, says on its website: “Super Recognisers are people with an extraordinary face-recognition ability.
“The skill cannot be taught – Super Recognisers are born this way. The average person can only remember a very limited amount of faces they have seen, but Super Recognisers can successfully identify significantly more.
“Where CCTV images are of poor quality, Super Recognisers have also have proved to be superior to computerised facial recognition software. Super recognising skills can make the world a safer place.
“They can help to solve all manner of serious crimes and assist in the search and identification of vulnerable people. Thanks to the ongoing work of Super Recognisers, criminals all over the world have been arrested, convicted and sent to prison.”
Ms Malik says she first discovered her skill while watching a TV programme about rapist and murderer Imran Ali, who was then on the loose in Pakistan but has now been caught and hanged for his crimes. She put a sketch of him on social media which went viral and, within days, police in the country had used it to track down the lead suspect.
She said: “It was a spur of the moment thing. I was watching the TV and this face came in front of me. I quickly did a sketch. I did it at about two in the morning because I couldn’t sleep.
“I worked out his eyebrows and what his forehead would be like. I thought ‘this is the person.’ The next thing I know is that Punjab police were in touch with me, and within the week, they’d got this suspect who matched the image on my sketch.
“His DNA matched with eight victims, including the girl that had died, and then within the year, he was hung." Ms Malik, a former NHS worker who is now an artist and writer, won the Asian women of achievement award in 2018 for her work with vulnerable children, believes she can use her gifts to help others.
She said: “I feel like I was on a path to help or to do good, really, or to give back to society.”
Last year she sketched what she said was the most accurate image of what Madeleine McCann would look like aged 18. She said she had a “strong theory” that Madeleine would have the same nose profile as her aunt, Philomena, rather than one matching her mum or dad.
