Mark Shand, the brother-in-law of Britain's Prince Charles, died in a New York hospital yesterday after suffering a serious head injury in a fall outside a club following a charity event.

Shand, aged 62, was the younger brother of Camilla Parker Bowles, who became the Duchess of Cornwall as the second wife of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

The royal couple confirmed the death in a statement, saying "family members are utterly devastated by this sudden and tragic loss."

"Mark Shand was a man of extraordinary vitality, a tireless campaigner and conservationist whose incredible work through the Elephant Family and beyond remained his focus right up until his death," the statement said.

According to the Telegraph, when police arrived Shand was allegedly lying on the ground outside the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel in Manhattan at 3am (7am GMT) and was transferred to New York's Bellevue Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Bellevue Hospital and Gramercy Park Hotel did not independently confirm the reports to Reuters.

But the Paramount Hotel did confirm that Shand had been there earlier in the night.

He had attended the Diamond Horseshoe club, but the hotel said in a statement that "he departed the venue" and "the accident occurred later in the evening at another destination".

Shand, who was also a travel writer, established the Elephant Family charity in 2002 to save the endangered Asian elephant from extinction in the wild.

His award-winning 1996 book, "Queen of the Elephants," was made into a documentary film.

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