The day teenage gunman tried to kill the Queen
Police claimed New Zealand gunshot was car backfiring – and hushed up truth for 37 years
A TEENAGE gunman tried to assassinate the Queen during a royal tour in New Zealand 37 years ago, secret documents have finally confirmed.
Police had sought to cover up the 1981 attempt by mentally disturbed 17-year- old Christopher Lewis.
But newly declassified papers from New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) confirm the teenager fired a .22 rifle intending to kill the monarch as she rode in a convoy through the southern city of Dunedin.
At the time, police alerted to the sound of a gunshot insisted that the single report was either a firecracker, a car backfiring, or – even more extraordinary – a temporary metal no parking sign being knocked over.
An inquiry has now begun into why the real story has taken so long to become public, amid claims that officials covered up a major security lapse.
The SIS memo says: ‘ Lewis did indeed originally intend to assassinate the Queen, however [he] did not have a suitable vantage point from which to fire, nor a sufficiently high-powered rifle for the range from the target.’
The memo comes from a file entitled Possible Attempt on the Life of Queen Elizabeth II by National Imperial Guerilla Army – a reference to a self- styled force created by Lewis.
The documents, marked secret, are dated November 9, 1981, three weeks after the attempt on October 14, 1981 – suggesting police were well aware of the gunshot soon after the incident.
Lewis was never charged with treason because police believed that he was not close enough to the Queen, or did not have a long enough clear view as she passed his vantage point.
Now New Zealand Police are investigating to try to find out every detail of the case, including an examination of how officers on duty at the time behaved and who gave the order to cover up the shooting attempt. A police spokesman said yesterday: ‘NZ Police will share the outcome of this examination once it has been completed.’
What has yet to be revealed is how close the bullet fired by Lewis came to hitting the Queen as he crouched with his rifle at the window of a toilet on the fifth floor of a building overlooking the royal route. It is not known if the round was recovered.
According to the papers, police worked out that the shot came from the vicinity of Walsh Street, yards from the convoy of vehicles carrying
‘Wanted to lead pro-Nazi terror cell’
the Queen and royal officials towards an engagement at Otago Museum.
Ballistic tests concluded that the shot would have passed over the heads of fans lining the streets.
Lewis, who had a history of armed robbery, arson and animal torture, was targeted by police who found clippings about the Royal Family in his flat as well as a detailed map of the Queen’s route that day, with the words Operation = Ass QUEB.
He was sentenced to three years in jail for discharging a firearm in public. After his release he committed a string of armed robberies before being charged with the murder of a young mother and the kidnapping of her child.
Lewis killed himself in 1997 at the age of 33 while on remand. He electrocuted himself after tampering with a junction box in his cell.
Reports said that shortly before he took his own life, he told his partner of his attempt to assassinate the Queen, and is alleged to have cursed: ‘Damn, I missed.’
After his arrest, Lewis told investigators that a mysterious Englishman he called ‘The Snowman’ had ordered him to carry out the assassination. He said the order had come because it was known that he wanted to lead a pro-Nazi terror cell as part of a network of far-Right groups.
Former Dunedin detective Tom Lewis – no relation to the gunman – said the prime minister at the time, Robert Muldoon, was worried that if the world learned how close the shooter had come to killing the Queen, the royals would never come to the country again.
In 1983, having been moved to a psychiatric hospital, Lewis tried to overpower a guard to try to assassinate Prince Charles, who visited New Zealand with Princess Diana and Prince William that year.