Royal honour for the Daily Mail’s Inspirational Women! Princess Anne hosts winners of our prestigious award at St James’s Palace – including Southport teacher Leanne Lucas

Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal took time out of her busy schedule to meet the winners of the Daily Mail Inspiring Women Awards today.

Looking extremely stylish in her green dress and navy blue jacket, Princess Anne hosted a special reception for five heroic women at St James’s Palace in London.

Among them was Ellen Roome MBE, 50, to whom the princess was visibly impressed.

Ellen is among parents campaigning for tighter regulations on addictive social media features following the heartbreaking death of her 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney in April 2022, which she believes may have been caused by exposure to harmful online content.

Until now, she has been denied access to her son’s social media data to uncover the truth, but her tireless work led to a major breakthrough earlier this year; The government has agreed to an amendment to the Crime and Policing Act that would require children’s social media data to be automatically protected within five days of a death.

Ellen, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, told The Daily Mail after receiving her award: ‘Princess Anne was a warm, engaging person, really keen to meet us and took the time to ask thoughtful questions. I found him incredibly down to earth and knowledgeable. It was a real honor to meet him.’

Former yoga teacher Leanne Lucas, who shared a tender moment with the princess, also turned unimaginable personal tragedy into one of Britain’s most powerful campaigns against knife crime.

Less than two years ago Leanne ran a Taylor Swift-themed children’s workshop in Southport; This workshop ended in horror when young Axel Rudakubana went on a frenzied knife attack, killing Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe.

Despite devastating physical injuries and ongoing psychological trauma, she turned her experience into extraordinary action through her prevention-focused organization, Let’s Be Blunt.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Leanne, 37, from Southport, Merseyside, said: ‘It’s clear what a keen campaigner Princess Anne is. He is very knowledgeable on many topics.

‘We talked about how important lived experience is and he said he was personally grateful for the work done by all the winners, considering what we experience on a daily basis.

‘He cared about each of us and that really meant a lot.’

Rachael Reign, from south London, who was awarded for her work as one of the UK’s leading survivor experts on spiritual and cult abuse, added: ‘It was really disarming and very interesting to talk to her.’

The 32-year-old single mother, who helps others trying to escape cults through her organisation, Surviving Universal UK, added: ‘She was so lovely and took the time to speak to us all privately. ‘We talked about how cults often address people’s most basic needs.’

Also at the private reception were campaigner and mother-of-two Hope Virgo, 35, from Bristol, who has spent years lobbying for better care and treatment services for people with eating disorders, and grandmother Patricia Parker OBE.

Hope said: ‘It was great to meet HRH and have the chance to highlight the issues people face with eating disorders across the UK.

Looking extremely stylish in her green dress and navy blue jacket, Princess Anne hosted a special reception for five heroic women at St James’s Palace in London. Among them was 50-year-old Ellen Roome MBE, with whom the princess was impressed.

‘What we really need is leadership in the field to ensure people receive adequate support and treatment.’

Patricia, 78, from Dorking in Surrey, has changed the lives of more than 600,000 people in Darfur in western Sudan since she founded the charity Kids for Kids 25 years ago. He described his win as ‘beyond my dreams’ and described the reception at St James’s as ‘a real privilege’.

After meeting Princess Anne he added: ‘It was a great honour. ‘He has a reputation for genuinely caring about children, being hands-on, wanting to make a long-term difference and we had a fascinating conversation about how important education is for young people.’

After The Mail launched its annual Inspiring Women Awards two months ago, asking people to nominate incredible women they know who go the extra mile for others, five winners were selected by a panel of judges from hundreds of truly inspiring entries.

Last night the winners celebrated with a special dinner at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in London, in partnership with disability charity Sense and sponsored by Marks & Spencer.

Princess Anne, who has been patron of Sense and Sense International since 1989, proudly wore the charity’s badge today and joked with the group about how late it was at night, asking if they had any headaches.

Ellen Roome attended dinner yesterday with her mother Lauren Cowell, the campaigner who nominated her for the Daily Mail award, and partner of music mogul Simon Cowell.

Along with Ellen and many other families, Lauren, 48, has also backed calls to restrict social media for under-16s.

He was also visibly moved by the other winners’ stories and chatted with them late into the night.

Following last night’s event, Lauren took to Instagram once again today to urge people to petition for social media change.

He explained: ‘There are currently meetings in government this week deciding how safe our children will be online.

‘The consultation has ended and ministers are expected to decide in the next two weeks on the level of detail on how they will keep their promise to us to raise the age of harmful social media.’

Lauren, who has a 12-year-old son Eric with Simon and elder son Adam from a previous marriage, added: ‘The request is simple: a minimum age of 16 for harmful social media. It’s not a curfew. Not future adjustments. It’s not a compromise.

‘Send an email to your MP. Tell them the government should raise the age for harmful social media to 16. It takes 30 seconds. The link is below. Let’s get this done. Let’s do this!’