I don’t regret breaking into the Palace, says Fagan
The Crown’s portrayal of Queen’s bedroom intruder is a bit overplayed: ‘It was over in just a few minutes’
THE man who broke into the Queen’s bedroom in the most infamous royal security breach has said he does not regret it.
The incident is dramatised in the new series of The Crown, revisiting a story that made headlines around the world in 1982.
Michael Fagan, an out- of- work painter and decorator, climbed the railings at Buckingham Palace, shinned up a drainpipe, got in through an open window and wandered the corridors, eventually finding himself face-to-face with the Queen.
Speaking ahead of the drama’s release this Sunday, Mr Fagan said: “There’s plenty of people who’ve knelt before the Queen but there’s not many who’ve sat on her bed and had a chat, is there?”
The Daily Telegraph tracked down Mr Fagan, who is now 70 and recovering from a recent heart attack and the aftereffects of Covid-19, to a tower block in Islington, north London.
Peter Morgan, the Netflix drama’s writer, did not approach him to contribute to the programme. The screen conversation between Mr Fagan (played by Tom Brooke) and the Queen (Olivia Colman) is a work of fiction.
In fact, despite reports at the time that Mr Fagan engaged the monarch in a 10-minute chat, very few words were actually exchanged.
“I pulled back the curtain and she said, ‘ What are you doing here?’ ” Her tone, he said, was not as clipped as he had expected. “She talks like me and you, normal. Well, I sound a bit common so maybe not like that. But very normal.”
The Queen did not, as the show cheekily suggests, address Mr Fagan with her favoured line in small talk: “Have you come far?”
In reality, after a short moment in which Mr Fagan sat on the bed, she told him, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and darted out of the room. “She walked out on her little legs. Then a footman comes in and goes, ‘ You look like you need a drink, mate.’”
The footman, Paul Whybrew, took Mr Fagan down the corridor. “He pours me a whisky out of the pantry. Then the policemen came and they were all over the place – they hadn’t arrested anyone for years, they were on a retirement posting, on guard duty. One of them was fumbling around for his notebook.”
Until the Queen sat up and spoke, Mr Fagan had not realised it was her bedroom as he did not think it was grand enough. “She never had a four-poster bed. And she’s got a little thing where she does her teas and coffees.”
The Netflix drama suggests that Mr Fagan launched a diatribe about Baroness Thatcher, telling the Queen that the prime minister had ruined the country.
In reality, he said, that was not the case and Morgan had “used a lot of artistic licence”. He still has no explanation for why he broke in, although he was frustrated by joblessness and the breakup of his marriage.
But he conceded that he did share the anti-thatcher sentiment. “A lot of people thought like that. She did a lot of damage to children. She was l i ke Trump,” he said.
Mr Fagan was arrested but not charged with trespass, as it was then a civil offence. Incredibly, it was the second time he had broken into the Palace – on the first, he was disturbed by a maid and fled. He was latterly charged with stealing a bottle of wine during that first intrusion, but was acquitted.
He was, however, sent to a psychiatric hospital for three months before returning home. In 1997, he was jailed for four years for heroin offences.
Now he lives with his partner of 17 years, Rhian, and has three great-grandchildren.