The King of Thailand broke coronavirus lockdown rules last week to travel 12,000 miles to go to a party.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 67, who has isolated himself with 20 girlfriends in a hotel in Bavaria, did the lockdown-busting round trip in just 24 hours. He jetted 12,000 miles for a knees up in Bangkok before flying back to his lockdown bolthole in Germany.

The monarch, also known as King Rama X, first stopped off in Zurich, Switzerland, to pick up his wife Queen Suthida, who is self-isolating there, and then dropped her off again on the way back.

He then returned to his harem at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Bavaria’s Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a winter sport resort, which he has taken over for lockdown.

He made the trip aboard a Thai Airways jet to celebrate Chakra Day in Thailand last Monday – a national annual holiday marking the the birth of his royal dynasty in 1782.

He was met in Bangkok by the prime minister Prayut Chan-ocha and the head of the Thai armed forces Apirat Kongsompong and they tucked in to a lavish banquet.

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He was seen paying his respects at the King Rama I monument with his wife Queen Suthida, Princess Bajrakitiyabha and Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana.

Despite breaching the lockdown in grand style, he said at the party: ‘This pandemic is not the fault of anybody.

‘The Government must solve the problem by understanding its causes.

‘It is necessary to establish a system and communicate it to the people and to understand it well.’

The controversial monarch has been criticised over his jet-set lifestyle and for choosing to spend lockdown in Germany instead of with his people.

But it has been muted because critics of the monarch face 35 years in jail under Thai law.

He was crowned king last May, nearly three years after his father’s death, in a six-hour ceremony that cost £25 million.

After becoming king he took on a royal consort but stripped her of the title again months later for ‘disrespectful’ behaviour to the queen.

His current wife, a former bodyguard, is his fourth.

He kept secret his third marriage, to a waitress, until she gave birth to their son in 2005.

He also made his poodle, Foo-Foo, a chief marshal in the Thai air force and when the pet died in 2015 and it was given a four-day Buddhist funeral.

Thailand declared a state of emergency and went into lockdown two weeks ago and has recorded 27 deaths and 2,250 cases of coronavirus.

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