Prince Still Devoted To Charity

Prince Charles said it would be criminally negligent of him not to help people in need in Britain and pledged to continue to work through his charity to help young people.

The prince made the remarks in a television interview to be broadcast Tuesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the Prince's Trust, a charity he set up to help Britons between the ages of 14 and 30.

"It's all part of minding deeply about this country and the people here and what I can do to help," he told veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald as part of documentary to be shown by the ITV channel Tuesday.

"I think it would be criminally negligent of me to go around this country and not actually want to try and do something about what I find there," he said.

The 57-year-old prince said problems such as high levels of unemployment motivated him to set up the charity in 1976 and that he would have been a "blinding idiot" not to have paid attention to what was happening.

The heir to the throne said that his critics, who have called him a meddler, would complain whatever he did.

"The trouble is you're in a no win situation, aren't you really? Because if you do absolutely nothing at all and stuff all, they're going to complain about that, and if you try and get stuck in and do something to help they also complain," Charles said.

"So at some point you just have to say I'm going to do it and that's that."