ShortHand: Princess Anne’s Kidnap Chaos

RedHanded

The episode recounts the chaotic 1974 attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne by Ian Ball on The Mall in London. It details the ten-minute sho

Key takeaways

• Ian Ball used a white Ford Escort to intercept Princess Anne's limousine during a drive to Buckingham Palace.
• Inspector Jim Beaton was shot multiple times while attempting to act as a human shield for the Princess and Captain Mark Phillips.

Main topics

• 1974 kidnapping attempt
• Royal security protocols

Notable quotes

not bloody likely

Conclusion

A fascinating look at a high-stakes moment in royal history that resha

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:13) Hello. Hello. Round two. Yes. We just started recording and then realised that I had failed to plug the microphones into the Rodecaster. Yeah, Speaker 2 (0:23) out of touch my arse, humble over here. Speaker 1 (0:25) Plugging in our own mics. I've been humbled. I've been fucking humbled. Speaker 2 (0:30) Anyway, a very royal welcome to Shorthand for you this week. We are going to revisit the British royal family. even though she is my favourite in the world. I'm not going to talk about Princess Diana because I'm not allowed. But I do still think that the Queen knocked her off. And I will argue that toss with anybody, but mainly my mum. She will. Don't fight her. Speaker 2 (0:54) So, if you have seen The Crown, which I feel like most people, even I've seen The Crown. Me too. Season three of Netflix's smash hit introduced us to a young, hot princess, Anne. She's pouty and serving looks and being very, very horsey. She's still very, very horsey. I think Speaker 1 (1:14) Zara's her Speaker 2 (1:15) daughter, isn't Speaker 1 (1:15) she? Zara, Olympic horsewoman. She is, indeed. But what Speaker 2 (1:20) The Crown did not show you... a very, very insane occurrence that happened to Princess Anne in 1974 when the 23-year-old, Big Liz and Prince Philip's only daughter, was almost kidnapped by a lone gunman on a twisted vigilante mission. Speaker 2 (1:40) The botched abduction attempt went down over just 10 action-packed minutes, with a shower of bullets, rogue Xboxers throwing punches, and a tussle resulting in a ripped dress and one seriously pissed-off princess. Despite ending up on Netflix's cutting-room floor years later, this incident blew a bullet-shaped hole into the monarchy's security regime, changing protocol forever, but didn't stop them knocking off Diana. This is The Shorthand. Speaker 1 (2:12) Now, before we tell you this story today, we should put some other things into context just a little bit. The 1970s was a pretty big decade for the British royal family. For centuries before, the royals had been semi-mythical remote figures. You'd have to line up in the streets for just a glimpse of them passing by, or maybe tune in to the occasional speech on the wireless. But now, the royals were in people's living rooms around the world through the power of television. The explosion in access to colour TV, with the number of sets in UK homes doubling from 100,000 to 200,000 between 1969 and 1970, so just in one year they doubled, and growing to a whopping 1.6 million by 1972, it all meant that now we could gawp at our royals in glorious technicolour, in the privacy of our own homes. Speaker 1 (3:12) Now, while we weren't yet at the peak of the media storm that surrounded Princess Diana in the 1990s, this was certainly the start of the wave of royals becoming celebrities. As Speaker 2 (3:27) Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's children reached young adulthood, the spotlight was firmly on the next generation of royal brats. At 23, newlywed Princess Anne was the young starlet of the firm, which, if you need reminding, is what Prince Philip called his family. In November 1973, 500 million people worldwide watched Princess Anne's televised wedding to famed equestrian Captain Mark Phillips. It was the highest ever viewership for a royal wedding. Until her big brother Charles hit 750 million views in 1981. That's Speaker 1 (4:08) mental. Speaker 2 (4:09) Yes. What? Obviously when he married Lady Diana. Yes, Speaker 1 (4:13) yes, yes. Speaker 2 (4:14) After trying to fuck her sister. Speaker 1 (4:16) Diana's sister? Speaker 2 (4:17) He went out with Diana's older sister before he went out with her. Oh, Speaker 1 (4:20) I didn't know that. Speaker 2 (4:21) I mean, you know, I obviously love her. It is not the Rex to Richard story that people think it is. She was also 14 or something when he first met her. But, you know, he shagged Speaker 1 (4:31) her Speaker 2 (4:31) sister first. Speaker 1 (4:32) Oh, well, there you go. Speaker 2 (4:34) But Anne, on the other hand, never really had the showy personality of Diana. She was much more interested in horses than in ball gowns or glamour, and she still is. But that didn't really matter to the press. She was still hot property. With her immaculate outfits and her iconic, cemented, unmoving hair, Princess Anne was the Kate Middleton of her time. Speaker 1 (4:57) Yeah, you can't have hair, like, flapping about when you're on a horse. No, certainly not. Hairspray that down. Speaker 1 (5:04) But amid this period of intense media change, the royals hadn't quite caught up to the new challenges that arose from being quite so visible in the public eye. Starting with their security regime, or should we say, lack thereof. In 1974, Princess Anne had only one police bodyguard assigned to protect her during royal engagements. And by his own admission, there was, quote, no special training for the job. To be honest, as far as anyone knew, there was no real need for it. Because there had been no credible attacks on British royalty for almost a century by that point. Not since the reign of the great dame herself, Queen Victoria. Speaker 2 (5:49) Victoria, who was the one who brought haemophilia into the gene pool, let's remember, racked up a total of seven attempts on her life during her long reign. She was unsuccessfully shot at in 1840, in 1942, and in 1849 by a succession of disgruntled working-class men. And in 1850, Robert Pate, a soldier with the nickname Mad Pate, no one's trying that hard, are they? Randomly beat Queen Victoria over the head with his metal-tipped cane in the street in Piccadilly. Speaker 2 (6:22) In 1872, a teenage rebel scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace to threaten Victoria with a pistol and with a knife. And there was one last near miss, another shooting that happened in 1882. Writing to her daughter about this final attempt, Queen Victoria reflected, It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved. Yikes. It's one way to look at it. Anyway. Speaker 2 (6:49) After the Victorian era came to a close, things on the Royal Assassination Front were quiet for some time. So, by 1974, after nearly a century of incident-free calm, it Speaker 1 (7:03) just so happened that the stage was set for an almighty storm. At around 8pm on the 20th of March 1974, a maroon Austin Princess Vandamplast limousine, marked with royal insignia, trundled down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. In the back was Princess Anne, her husband, Captain Mark Phillips, and Anne's lady-in-waiting, Rowena Jane Brassy. The limo was driven by Alexander Callender, one of the Queen's chauffeurs. Anne's assigned police bodyguard, Inspector James Wallace Beaton of Scotland Yard's SO14 branch for Royal Protection, known as Jim, sat in the front passenger seat. It was, by all accounts, an ordinary night. The royal newlyweds had attended a charity film screening by Riding for the Disabled, a cause that they both supported as Olympian equestrians, and they were heading back to Buckingham Palace, presumably for a nightcap and bed. But about 200 yards away from the palace, a white Ford Escort overtook the limousine and forced the chauffeur to stop abruptly. As a bearded man with light red hair climbed out of the car, Inspector Jim Beaton stepped out to meet him, assuming he was some sort of disgruntled driver. But this was not your average case of road rage. The man, 26-year-old Ian Ball, was brandishing two handguns. And from six feet away, he shot police officer Jim Beaton in his right shoulder. And with that, of course, all hell broke loose. Speaker 2 (8:50) Beaton instinctively drew his own weapon and shot back at Ball, but his shoulder wound affected his accuracy, so he missed. And the timing just got worse. Beaton's gun jammed next. And whilst he desperately tried to clear the blockage to no avail, Ball ordered him to drop his