The royal family have highly trained security teams for a very important reason. As one of the world’s most famous families, they have found themselves to be the target of assassination and kidnap plots over the decades.
As Channel 4 airs a new documentary about Princess Anne’s 1974 kidnap attempt, titled Princess Anne: The Plot to Kidnap a Royal, find out more about the other terrifying situations the royals have avoided.
Princess Anne
Princess Anne avoided a kidnap attempt in 1974 while returning to Buckingham Palace from a charity event alongside her then-husband, Mark Phillips. While driving on the Mall, they were stopped and the would-be kidnapper, Ian Ball, began firing a gun.
Anne’s personal police officer James Beaton, her chauffeur Alex Callender and a nearby journalist Brian McConnell all attempted to intervene and were shot. A passing former boxer, Ron Russell, was able to hit Ball and help Anne from the scene before another officer was shot upon arriving to help.
All four men recovered from their injuries and were awarded various medals from the Queen. Speaking about the situation, James reflected: “I had nothing… There was no back-up vehicle. The training was non-existent; but then again, [we thought] nothing was going to happen. They are highly specialised now, highly trained.”
The Queen
A man named Christopher John Lewis tried to kill the late Queen in 1981 in New Zealand. Hiding a gun, he fired through a window at the Queen, missing her. He was arrested eight days later with public possession of a firearm and public discharging of a firearm, which surprised him at the time, as he reportedly replied: “Only two charges, what? [Expletive] … Had the bullet hit her, would it be treason?”
In another instance, a man named Jaswant Singh Chail admitted that he broke into the grounds of Windsor Castle with a crossbow in the hopes of killing the Queen. He was near her private apartments back in 2021 when he was apprehended, and he claimed to want revenge for the 1919 Amritsar massacre in India.
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He pleaded guilty to section two of the Treason Act as well as possession of an offensive weapon and making threats to kill. At the time, a royal protection officer questioned him, to which he replied: “I am here to kill the Queen.”
Prince George
In 2018, a man named Husnain Rashid was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years for encouraging an attack on Prince George using the messaging site Telegram. He pleaded guilty to the offence of encouraging terrorism after sharing several suggestions on how to launch an attack as well as sharing images of George’s school.
At the time, Judge Andrew Lees said during sentencing: “The message was clear – you were providing the name and address of Prince George’s school, an image of Prince George’s school and the instruction or threat that Prince George and other members of the Royal family should be viewed as potential targets.”
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King Charles
The then-Prince of Wales remained remarkably unperturbed when a man named David Kang fired two blank shots at him back in 1994 while he was about to make a speech in Australia.
While the man never intended any harm on the royal, instead hoping to draw attention to Australian detention centres, he was sentenced to 500 hours of community service for threatening unlawful violence.
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