The making of hellraiser Harry

A roadside brawl with punches flying and angry exchanges of insults was the hallmark of Frank Sinatra and something we have come to expect from Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe. It is not how members of the British royal family are supposed to behave. Street fighting is Sunset Boulevard, not Buckingham Palace.

That it is Prince Harry who has just become involved in an unpleasant late-night altercation, however, is very much in character. He is a restless, headstrong young man who has acquired a reputation for attracting trouble.

It is all so very different from the little boy he once was. When he was small he liked nothing better than to cuddle up to his mother and enjoy her total attention. That gave people the impression he was a bit of a mummy's boy (he was anything but).

Yet as he grew older, he became much more physical. By the time he got to Eton it was quite clear that, of the two young princes, he was the one most capable of taking care of himself.

Put that together with the short fuse that is a characteristic of the Windsor and Spencer men and you have a confrontation waiting to happen.

He is unlike his father, the Prince of Wales, in that respect. Charles has a violent temper and is liable to throw things - but never punches. I doubt if he's ever had a proper fight in his life. At Gordonstoun he used to back away from any threat of violence, including on the rugby field.

Harry is quite the opposite. He is fearless and enjoys the rough and tumble of competitive sport - and has shown himself to be prepared to take whatever punishment might be coming his way, provided of course that he could dish it out as well. In that he is very similar to his uncle, Earl Spencer - who once chased a shoplifter down a street - and even more notably like his grandfather, Prince Philip, who could always give as good as he got, both verbally and physically.

When Harry was playing cricket on a beach in Cornwall a couple of years ago, he was approached by a gang of youths who enquired in a provocative and mocking way: "Are you Prince Harry?"

He pulled his cap down over his eyes and replied: "F*** off - and leave me alone." They did. They sensed that he was quite serious in his determination to defend himself against anything they might have been planning.

What Harry has yet to learn, however, is the self-control that is the mark of manhood. As he himself recently admitted: "I've got an incredibly immature side to me."

Others see that as arrogance. To put it bluntly, there are times when he acts liked a spoiled, over-privileged brat. On holiday in Marbella on Spain's Costa del Sol, he tore around a golf course in a buggy, using a golf club as a polo stick and churning up the greens without regard to the damage he was causing.

This is partly a reaction to the position he was born into. He gets on well with William and they are very supportive of each other, notwithstanding Harry's desire to tease his brother at any opportunity. When you see them together, it is Harry who appears the more confident. But in his own eyes he has always been secondbest. At a very early age he recognised it was William who was the most important boy in the family.

Diana was very aware of the problems that might cause in later years. As she observed: "He is very like me - emotional, physically demonstrative and, given the opportunity, quite naughty. He doesn't mind doing anything - and only thinks about the consequences afterwards."

She did her very best to treat her two sons as equals. She told me: "Harry is very sensitive and needs all the love he can get." Unfortunately, the rest of the family have not been so considerate.

The Queen Mother, for instance, gave all her attention to William because of his position as the future king. And when Harry visited the household of his grandmother the Queen, the staff were always more attentive to William - with the inevitable consequence that the younger prince felt very left out. On his recent tour of Africa he put his feelings into words, saying: "I'm no one special."

THE only way he felt able to assert himself was by being funnier, braver and more aggressive than William. As one member of the royal family explained it to me: "Those are good characteristics to have if you are in the position Harry is." What should stand him in good stead in life, however, can be something of a handicap on a West End street at 3am.

But can you blame him? Not entirely. His mother's sudden death was bound to leave a wounding impression on his young mind and to this day he holds the paparazzi responsible. Now he is in a situation similar to the one she had to endure for so many years and he is finding it tough going. "I'd love to let it wash over me but I can't," he says.

On Thursday morning, as he emerged from the Pangaea nightclub in Piccadilly, he was suddenly surrounded by a mob of scuffling, yelling photographers. He lashed out. It was not a considered reaction. It certainly wasn't "royal". But as Harry often says: "I am who I am."

At the moment I am sure he would rather be somebody else.