‘Open, or I’ll shoot!’ ‘Not bloody likely’, the Princess replied icily
How Anne kept her regal froideur as a crazed loner shot FOUR men who tried to stop him wrestling her from her car in £3m kidnap bid. And as this gripping retelling reveals, she only ‘lost her rag’ when he ripped her evening gown
IN March 1974 a man attempted to abduct Princess anne at gunpoint just yards from Buckingham Palace. The Daily Mail described the incident as ‘the century’s most bizarre kidnap’.
a few weeks later, when a report of the kidnapping was sent to Prime Minister harold Wilson, he wrote in the margin: ‘a very good story. Pity the Palace can’t let it out.’
But over the years the truth about the kidnapping and the bravery of those involved has been revealed. Tomorrow channel 4 broadcasts a documentary, Princess anne: The Plot To Kidnap a royal. here, in a gripping minute-by-minute account, JONATHAN MAYO pieces together the events of that extraordinary evening.
Wednesday, March 20, 1974, 7.30pm
Princess anne, 23, and her husband captain Mark Phillips, 25, are leaving the city of London after a charity screening of a film called riding Towards Freedom. The couple married just four months ago at Westminster abbey and are both leading equestrians. in 1971 the Princess won the european Three-Day event at Burghley, and Mark was part of the British 1972 Olympic Team. The Queen is said to have remarked: ‘i shouldn’t wonder if their children are four-legged.’
although she is an outstanding sportswoman, Princess anne is not popular with the public, who perceive her as sometimes rude and impatient. in 1970, after an event at the White house, the Washington Post dubbed her the ‘royal sourpuss’ and said she was ‘sullen, ungracious and plain bored’.
The Queen and Prince Philip are 7,000 miles away in Jakarta, on a state visit to indonesia.
7.40pm
anne and Mark’s maroon austin Princess Vanden Plas limousine has reached the West end. They don’t realise that for the last few miles a white Ford escort has been following them, driven by a 26-yearold man with light red hair named ian Ball. he is unemployed and later describes himself as ‘a loner. i don’t have any friends’. in Ball’s car is a typed letter addressed to the Queen, saying that he has kidnapped her daughter and that he demands a ransom of £3 million. The letter states that anne’s mother must put the money in 20 suitcases on a plane bound for switzerland. Ball has been planning this kidnap for more than two years. The house he has rented in hampshire to hold anne is stocked with enough food to last a fortnight. Ball has brought with him two guns, Valium tranquilisers and four pairs of handcuffs — two pairs are locked together to function as leg shackles. The kidnapper knows anne’s plans for this evening because he simply rang Buckingham Palace and asked for them.
7.44pm
The royal limousine turns onto The Mall, the broad road that runs from Trafalgar square to Buckingham Palace. at this time of night it is badly lit and there is little traffic. sitting opposite anne and Mark on a folding seat is ladyin-waiting rowena Brassey. in the front of the vehicle are inspector Jim Beaton — Princess anne’s police close protection officer since the day of her wedding — and the chauffeur alexander callender. Beaton carries a regulation Walther P38 pistol but has no police radio to call for help, since it’s considered that aerials spoil the look of royal limousines. Beaton said later: ‘You’re literally on your own.’
ian Ball’s Ford escort is right behind them.
7.45pm
The two cars are just 200 yards from Buckingham Palace when Ball hits the accelerator and overtakes the limousine, then brakes suddenly — forcing chauffeur callender to stop.
When Jim Beaton sees Ball jump out of the escort he thinks at first that the tall stranger is an irate motorist and gets out of the car to talk to him, but as he does so Ball shoots him in the chest.
Beaton feels an impact ‘like from a cricket ball’ and doesn’t realise he’s been shot. everything seems to move in slow motion as he pulls out his pistol from its shoulder holster and fires at Ball.
But the policeman is weakened by his injury, his aim is poor and the bullet hits the car.
Princess anne said wryly: ‘The police got off one shot that i’m convinced came through the back window of the car. Glass hit me at the back of the head, which was a good start.’ now Beaton holds the gun steady with two hands and fires again, but the notoriously unreliable Walther P38 jams.
he ducks behind the limo. inside, anne tells her lady-in-waiting rowena Brassey to make a run for it; she opens the door and sprints into st James’s Park.
7.46pm
IAN BALL now turns to the rear door behind the driver’s seat and starts shaking it, yelling at Princess anne: ‘Open, or i’ll shoot!’
Princess anne replies calmly: ‘not bloody likely.’
Later Ball was asked why he planned to kidnap anne and he replied: ‘she was the only girl in the royal Family and she would have been the easiest.
‘i have seen her and her husband out riding. The royal Wedding made me think of giving it up — they looked like a nice couple.’
a young woman, sammy scott, driving down The Mall sees ‘a tall man in a raincoat trying to get into the royal car. he was shaking the door madly and firing wildly’.
7.47pm
ALTHOUGH he’s been shot, police protection officer Jim Beaton isn’t done yet. he said: ‘There were only two directions for me to go — forwards or backwards. Backwards wasn’t part of my make-up or training and so i went forwards
and hoped for the best.’ He clambers back into the back of the car and looks up to see Ball now aiming a gun at Princess Anne.
Beaton reaches over, putting his hand up to cover her when he sees Ball shift his aim. ‘I can remember the gun and the barrel pointing towards me,’ he said later.
Ball fires, hitting the policeman twice, in the hand and abdomen. Part of the bullet is lodged in his hand to this day.
Dazed and in pain, Beaton gets out of the car. ‘I remembered that I’d got a new suit on and I didn’t want to fall down and damage it,’ he said. He slowly collapses on to the pavement.
Chauffeur Callender confronts Ball, who shoots him in the chest. Callender falls back into the car. Anne has the presence of mind to count the bullets, knowing that her attacker will eventually run out. ‘I’ve seen the movies,’ she said.
7.48pm
BALL manages to prise open the rear door and orders Princess Anne to come with him. In a TV interview with Michael Parkinson, she recalled: ‘We had a sort of discussion about where or where not we were going to go; he said I had to go with him, I can’t remember why. I said I didn’t want to go.
‘I was scrupulously polite because I thought it would be too silly to be rude at that stage.
‘We had a fairly low-key discussion about the fact that I wasn’t going to go anywhere and wouldn’t it be much better if he just went away and we all forget about it.’
Husband Phillips added: ‘Somehow, while we had a dialogue going, it didn’t seem too bad, because we were able to keep talking, to keep arguing.’
Anne had already thought about what she would do if she was ever kidnapped. ‘It had struck one as a possibility and I’d decided that I wasn’t going to get out, if that particular situation arose.
‘However, there was only one man. If there had been more than one, that might have made a difference.’
7.49pm
BALL grabs hold of Princess Anne and tries to pull her out, while her husband holds on to her. ‘I was frightened, I won’t mind admitting it,’ Phillips said. In the struggle, the back of Anne’s evening dress rips. ‘That was his most dangerous moment,’ she joked later. ‘I lost my rag at that stage.’
Anne asks him: ‘Why do you want to kidnap me? Why don’t you go away? What good is all this going to do?’ Ball replies: ‘I’ll get a couple of million. I only want you for two days.’
PC Mick Hills, 22, who had been on duty outside Clarence House, approaches the limousine. Unaware of the gravity of the situation and thinking the two cars have been involved in a road accident, he taps Ball on the shoulder.
Ball swings round and shoots him. Though PC Hills’s pocket-book takes some of the force of the blast, he has been seriously injured.
7.50pm
SAMMY SCOTT has stopped her car and run over to the limousine where she can see Anne and Mark huddled at the back, and Jim Beaton lying on the ground covered in blood. Sammy tells PC Hills that Beaton needs to get to hospital as he’s been shot.
Hills looks at her for a moment and says, ‘So have I,’ before collapsing. He manages, however, to radio for assistance.
Negotiations with the kidnapper continue. ‘And then we went back to this rather tedious discussion about not going anywhere,’ Anne recalled. In a surreal moment, she said, a member of the public walks over to the princess’s side of the car, looks in through the window and says: ‘Mmm, so it is!’ then walks off.
7.51pm
BY NOW more passers-by are becoming involved. A man named Glenmore Martin drives his Jaguar in front of the Escort to block its escape route.
Ron Russell, an area manager for a cleaning firm, is driving to his home in Kent when he sees PC Hills being shot. Russell said later: ‘As a 6ft 4in, ex-heavyweight boxer, I decided I was well-placed to defuse the situation.’
He runs across the road and punches Ball on the back of the head. The kidnapper staggers but doesn’t fall. He fires at Russell, but the bullet misses and hits the windscreen of a passing car.
Brian McConnell, a Fleet Street journalist and author of a book about famous assassinations, is in a taxi on his way home after an evening having drinks with colleagues. He orders the taxi to stop, boldly walks up to Ball and says: ‘Don’t be silly, old boy, put the gun down.’ He is promptly shot in the chest.
By now there are four men lying injured on the ground. Ball is not going to let anyone interfere with his plan. Ron Russell has been checking on the injured policemen and the chauffeur.
He then leans into the car and lifts Princess Anne out, saying to her: ‘Now we’re going to walk away and he’s going to have to get through me to get you.’
Ball sees what is going on and approaches Russell, so Mark Phillips pulls his wife back into the safety of the car.
Russell thinks, ‘It’s you or me now. And I better hit you a bit harder,’ and punches Ball so hard he falls to the ground.
7.52pm
THE police arrive in force and Ian Ball, realising that he’s now totally outnumbered, gets up and runs into St James’s Park, still wielding his guns.
From the car, Mark Phillips watches the police surround him. ‘That was the most frightening part. He was like a caged animal.’
PC Peter Edmonds ignores the weapons pointed at him and rugbytackles Ball, who is then handcuffed on the ground. Sammy Scott puts her head into the smashed windows of the limousine and asks Anne and Mark if they are ok. ‘yes, thank you,’ Anne replies calmly.
8.00pm
AS BALL is taken to Canon Row police station by Westminster Bridge, a police car drives Anne and Mark and lady-in-waiting Rowena Brassey to Buckingham Palace where they give a statement to Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Gerrard, the head of the Royal Protection Police.
He is desperate to establish if the kidnapper was working alone or as part of an organised gang. In the confusion, Ron Russell is arrested as the police think he is Ball’s accomplice, until someone from the Palace intervenes.
9pm
ANNE phones the Queen and Prince Philip in Jakarta to tell them about the kidnapping attempt. Her parents decide to stick to their schedule and return to london as planned in two days.
Prince Charles is an officer in the Royal Navy and is currently in San Diego, California, with his frigate HMS Jupiter. He is having lunch on shore when the ship’s First lieutenant arrives with news of a report ‘that shots had been fired’ at Anne’s car.
Charles said later he was ‘dumbfounded’. In the San Diego naval base, patrols are doubled and the pier where HMS Jupiter is moored is cleared of people. In london, Mark Phillips calls his mother Anne at their family home in Great Somerford, Wiltshire, to reassure her they are unharmed.
The couple release a statement: ‘We are very thankful to be in one piece, but we are deeply disturbed and concerned about those who got injured.’
10pm
PRINCE Charles is on the phone to Anne and is stunned how calm she sounds. She describes how she saw four people shot in front of her and the tug of war between the kidnapper and Mark.
Charles writes in his journal that night that Anne’s story was ‘just like a nightmare’ and that she spoke ‘as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence.
‘Her bravery and superb obstinacy were unbelievable. My admiration for such an incredible sister knows no bounds!’
Twenty years later, in Sydney,
Charles will show similar calm when a man fires a starting pistol at him as he is about to make a speech. Charles fiddled with his shirt cuffs as the man was wrestled to the ground.
10.30pm
IN THE House of Commons, Home Secretary Roy Jenkins is making a statement, having had urgent talks with the Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
The House cheers when Jenkins says: ‘The attempt did not succeed and neither the Princess nor Captain Phillips was hurt.’ The Home Secretary immediately orders a permanent increase in royal protection.
Meanwhile Anne and Mark have arrived back at their home in Sandhurst. Special Branch officers are stationed outside and armed troops are patrolling the grounds.
Aftermath
THE following day, Anne and Mark carry on as normal, visiting his home in Great Somerford to plant a commemorative tree on the village green. Local people were grateful they came despite the kidnap attempt. Anne said: ‘It wouldn’t have been much good sitting and brooding. We’ve practically forgotten about it.’
Remarkably, all four people shot by Ian Ball survived. In September 1974, the Queen awarded the George Cross — the highest civilian award for courage — to protection officer Jim Beaton and the George Medal — the second-highest civilian honour — to PC Mick Hills and Ron Russell, as well as Queen’s Gallantry medals to PC Peter Edmonds, journalist John Brian McConnell and chauffeur Alexander Callender.
Glenmore Martin, who drove his Jaguar in front of Ball’s car, received the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.
At Ian Ball’s trial, his barrister said that his client was grateful that the Princess had stayed so ‘calm and cool’, during what must have been ‘a terrifying experience’.
Ball wanted to pay tribute to her for the ‘beneficial effect it had so far as the defendant was concerned’. The trial lasted just two hours. Ball pleaded guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping charges. He was sentenced to a life term in a mental health facility where, now aged 75, he remains to this day.
Jim Beaton was back at work after six months. He said: ‘There was no psychiatrist, no nothing. I went to work and they said, “Oh, hello you’re back,” and that was it.’
In 2020, illness forced Ron Russell to sell his George Medal. He said: ‘I want to know that I’ve done enough to pay for my own funeral.’
Ron will always remember what the Queen said to him when she presented him with the medal: ‘The medal is from the Queen, but I want to thank you as Anne’s mother.’
Princess Anne’s popularity with the public soared as accounts of her bravery became known. No longer was she ‘Royal Sourpuss’.
JONATHAN MAYO is author of D-Day: Minute By Minute, published by Short Books.
PRINCESS ANNE: The Plot To Kidnap A Royal is on 9pm Sunday on Channel 4.