She helped to comfort the princes after their mother's death in a road accident in Paris on 31 August 1997. There was anger in 1998 when Legge-Bourke allowed the young princes to abseil down the fifty-metre dam of Grwyne Fawr Reservoir in Wales without safety lines or helmets. Staff at St James's Palace mounted an inquiry, and Legge-Bourke was reported to have been saved only by the princes' adoration of her.