Around 43 years ago our late sovereign Queen Elizabeth II fended off an intruder by…talking to him. At about 7.15am on July 9, 1982 Michael Fagan, 31, clambered up the walls of Buckingham Palace using a drain pipe and ended up in Her Majesty’s private apartments.
He was barefoot and wearing a t-shirt, and somehow managed to swerve alarms and armed cops as he made his entrance by opening a curtain. But shockingly, the unemployed father of four asked the late Queen for a cigarette, which was when she was able to raise the alarm.
She called for a footman who held Fagan in his place until the police came. There was only a short while between the police officers outside the royal bedroom changing shifts, but it was during this changeover that the intrusion happened.
But despite causing what would likely be an incredible fright, he was not charged for trespassing in the Queen’s bedroom as back then it was a civil offence and proceedings would have compromised the Queen’s position as head of state.
In September that year a judge acquitted Fagan of stealing wine from the palace’s cellars.
However he admitted stealing a car and the judge at the Central Criminal Court sent him to a mental health hospital in Liverpool, where he stayed for three months.
It wasn’t the last time someone would intrude on her either, as almost 40 years later – back in December 2021 – Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, arrived at Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow in a “carefully planned and executed” attempt to kill her.
He had posted a video on his Snapchat just before he entered the grounds where the Queen was staying due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The former supermarket worker, from North Baddesley in Hampshire, was the first person in the UK in over 40 years to be hit with a Treason charge.
He was sentenced to nine years behind bars with another five on license.
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