All British Army officers are obliged, as holders of the Queen's commission, to behave according to high ethical and moral standards and to conduct themselves in public and private in a way that will not damage or undermine the reputation of the Service.

Prince Harry will have learned all about the Army's expectations of him when he was instructed in the art of leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

To be caught on video referring to a fellow Sandhurst officer cadet as a "Paki" is an infringement of the Army's golden rules of behaviour, particularly as the Service and its chiefs have been trying for years to stamp out the impression that bullying and racism are institutionalised within its ranks. His use of the word "raghead" in referring to another officer cadet compounded his error of judgment.

Nevertheless, it is right to put this three-year-old incident into some context. Prince Harry was clearly not attempting to be deliberately offensive towards his Pakistani colleague but appeared to be using the pejorative term in a light-hearted way. Similarly, the term "raghead" is used not infrequently in the Army when soldiers are referring to the "opposition" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Being maliciously racist is a far worse offence and would have led to a formal complaint and possible disciplinary action. This is not what the Army is now having to face, especially as Prince Harry has quickly apologised, following publication of the video details in the News of the World.

After Prince Harry's previous misjudgment, however, when he went to a party in 2005 dressed in the uniform of the German Afrika Corps, with a swastika armband, he was also required to make a formal apology.

Prince Harry's decision to join the Army was considered a great coup for the Service. He became instantly its most famous officer and when he served in southern Afghanistan, albeit for only ten weeks, it brought immeasurably favourable publicity for the Army as a whole.

The downside of having a young prince, third-in-line to the throne, as a high-profile member of the Service is that when he strays from the line of acceptable behaviour, the impact on the reputation and image of the Army is on a far greater scale and thus more deeply embarrassing for everyone.

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