Michael Fagan (born 8 August 1948) is a British man who broke into Buckingham Palace and entered Queen Elizabeth II's bedroom in 1982. The incident was one of the 20th century's worst royal security breaches.
Michael Fagan was born in Clerkenwell, London, on 8 August
1948, the son of Ivy and Michael Fagan, who was a steel erector and a
"champion safe-breaker." He had two younger sisters, Margaret and
Elizabeth. In 1955, he attended Compton Street School in Clerkenwell (now St.
Peter & St. Paul RC Primary School). In 1966, he left home at 18 to escape
from his father – who, Fagan says, was violent – and started working as a
painter and decorator. In 1972, he married Christine, with whom he had four
children.
First entry
According to his own account, the 9 July 1982 incident was
Michael Fagan's second attempted intrusion on the palace; the first happening
about a month before.[2] Fagan says he shinnied up the drainpipe, startling a
housemaid, who called security. When guards reached the scene, Fagan had
disappeared, leading them to believe the housemaid was mistaken. Fagan claims
he entered the palace through an unlocked window on the roof and spent the next
half-hour eating cheddar cheese and crackers and wandering around. He tripped
several alarms, but they were faulty. He claims to have viewed royal portraits
and rested for a while on the throne. He also spoke of entering the postroom,
where Diana, Princess of Wales, had hidden presents for her son, William, who
had only been born the previous month. Fagan said he drank half a bottle of
white wine before becoming tired and leaving.
Second entry
At the time of the second incident, 9 July 1982, Michael
Fagan was 33 years old and an unemployed decorator whose wife had just left
him. At around 7:00 am on that day Fagan scaled Buckingham Palace's
14-foot-high (4.3 m) perimeter wall – topped with revolving spikes and barbed
wire – and climbed up a drainpipe before wandering into the Queen's bedroom
at about 7:15 am.
An alarm sensor had detected his prior movements inside the
palace, but police thought the alarm was faulty and silenced it. Fagan wandered
the palace corridors for several minutes before reaching the section where the
royal apartments were located. In an anteroom Fagan broke a glass ashtray,
cutting his hand. He was still carrying a fragment of the glass when he entered
the Queen's bedroom.
The Queen woke when he disturbed a curtain, and initial
reports said Fagan sat on the edge of her bed. However, in a 2012 interview, he
said she left the room immediately to seek security. She had phoned the palace
switchboard twice for police, but none had arrived. Fagan then asked for some
cigarettes, which were brought by a maid, who had been cleaning a neighbouring
room. The duty footman, Paul Whybrew, who had been walking the Queen's dogs,
then appeared, followed by two policemen on palace duty who removed Fagan. The
incident had happened as the armed police officer outside the royal bedroom
came off duty before his replacement arrived.
A subsequent police report was critical of the competence of
officers on duty, as well as a system of confused and divided command.
Arrest
Since it was then a civil wrong rather than a criminal
offence, Fagan was not charged for trespassing in the Queen's bedroom. He was
charged with theft (of the wine), but the charges were dropped when he was
committed for psychiatric evaluation. In late July, Fagan's mother said,
"He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply
talk and say hello and discuss his problems." He spent the next six months
in a psychiatric hospital before being released on 21 January 1983.
It was not until 2007, when Buckingham Palace became a
"designated site" for the purposes of section 128 of the Serious
Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, that his offence became criminal.
Two years after entering Buckingham Palace, Fagan attacked a
policeman at a café in Fishguard, Wales, and was given a three-month suspended
jail sentence. In 1983, Fagan recorded a cover version of the Sex Pistols song
"God Save The Queen" with British punk band the Bollock Brothers. He
was found guilty of indecent exposure in 1987 after he was spotted running
around wearing no trousers on waste ground in Chingford, London. In 1997, he
was imprisoned for four years after he, his wife and their 20-year-old son were
charged with conspiring to supply heroin.
Fagan made an appearance in Channel 4's The Antics
Roadshow, an hour-long 2011 TV documentary directed by the British street
artist Banksy charting the history of people behaving oddly in public. The
palace intrusion was adapted in 2012 for an episode of Sky Arts' Playhouse
Presents series entitled Walking the Dogs, a one-off British comedy drama
starring Emma Thompson as the monarch.
Emma Thompson to star as Queen in Buckingham Palace break-in
drama
Daniella GrahamFriday 24 Feb 2012 9:22 am
Thompson is to play the Queen in a drama based on the 1982
Buckingham Palace break-in – although real-life intruder Michael Fagan claims
to be ‘appalled’ by plans to dramatise the event. Emma Thompson will play the
Queen in Walking The Dogs (Picture: PA)
30 years ago Fagan managed to sneak into the palace, making
his way into the Queen’s bedroom and chatting to her for ten minutes before
police finally arrived. He was initially charged with theft after drinking some
wine in the palace, but the charges were later dropped and he went on to be
detained in a psychiatric hospital. Now the event is to be dramatised for in a
made-for-TV film entitled Walking The Dogs, with Oscar-winner Emma Thompson set
to follow in the footsteps of Helen Mirren by taking on the role of Queen
Elizabeth II. Michael Fagan (played by Eddie Marsan) spent 10 minutes in the
Queen’s bedroom in 1982 (Picture: Sky/PA) Fagan will be played by Tyrannosaur’s
Eddie Marsan, while Being Human star Russell Tovey will play a footman who had
been walking the royal corgis instead of guarding the royal bedroom. In the
fictionalised account the three discuss a variety of topics before police
arrive to take away Fagan. The real-life Michael Fagan has blasted the
programme, saying his ‘moment of madness’ should not be dramatised. Michael
Fagan has blasted the drama (Picture: Sky/PA) The Daily Telegraph quotes him as
saying: ‘The Queen deserves respect and I’m sorry that all the focus over all
these years has been on the fact that I was in her bedroom. ‘I can’t believe
they’re now putting so much attention on it, particularly in her jubilee year.
‘It was just a moment of madness. For her to be dragged through the dirt by me
isn’t nice. And how can they make a drama? They don’t know what happened in
there.’ He also claimed he was ‘appalled’ that his description of the Queen’s
underwear was public and said he wanted to ‘protect’ the monarch by remaining
silent on what happened – despite discussing the incident
at length in an interview this week. Walking The Dogs, part of a series of
one-off comedies and dramas called Playhouse Presents, is set to be screened by
Sky Arts in the spring.
Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan 'given whisky by
Queen's staff'
Michael Fagan, the man who broke into Buckingham Palace, has
claimed that her staff gave him whisky after catching him in the Queen’s
bedroom, saying that he looked like ‘he needed a drink’.
Nick Britten By Nick Britten1:09PM GMT 19 Feb 2012
In the year the Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, Fagan
has disclosed some the secrets of what happened the night of July 9th 1982,
revealing that he went barefoot after losing his shoes on the roof and talking
about the knee-length nightie she was wearing.
Revealing that he was “scareder” than he had ever been as he
came face to face with the Queen, pulling back the curtains surrounding her
bed, he said: “Then she speaks and it's like the finest glass you can imagine
breaking: 'Wawrt are you doing here?!'
"It was a double bed but a single room, definitely –
she was sleeping in there on her own. Her nightie was one of those Liberty
prints and it was down to her knees."
Claiming reports down the years that the Queen had a long
conversation with him to stall him while security was summoned were wrong,
Fagan said: “She went past me and ran out of the room; her little bare feet
running across the floor.”
He claimed moments later, an unarmed footman arrived at the
door. He said: “The footman came and said, 'Cor, f****** hell mate, you look
like you need a drink'. His name was [Paul] Whybrew, which is a funny name for
someone offering you a drink, innit? He took me to the Queen's pantry, across
the landing, where I presume she cooks her baked beans and toast and whatever –
and takes a bottle of Famous Grouse from the shelf and pours me a glass of
whisky."
In an interview with the Independent on Sunday, Fagan said
he had lost his shoes on the roof of the Palace, but they were eventually
returned. "I got my sandals
returned to me two years later by the security guard. 'These are
Michael's sandals, we found them on the roof,' they said."
Fagan’s antics remain one of the most embarrassing breaches
of royal security. Before entering the Queen’s room, he wandered around the
palace unhindered, via King George V's multimillion-pound stamp collection,
triggering the alarm twice. Police turned it off, assuming the warnings were
errors. The resulting scandal prompted the then Home Secretary, Willie
Whitelaw, to offer his resignation to the Queen, which she refused.
It wasn’t the first time Fagan had broken into the Palace. A
month earlier, he climbed in through the window of a maid's bedroom, but by the
time security arrived, he was lost in the maze of corridors.
He said; “I found rooms saying 'Diana's room', 'Charles's
room'; they all had names on them. But I couldn't find a door which said 'WC'.
All I found were some bins with 'corgi food' written on them. I was breaking my
neck to go to the toilet. What do I do? Pee on the carpet? So I had to pee on
the corgi food. I got into Charles's room and took the wine off the shelf and
drunk it. It was cheap Californian.
"I was loving it... It was like Goldilocks and the
Three Bears; I tried one throne and was like 'this one's too soft'. I was
having a laugh to myself because there was one right next to it, so I tried
another.”
Fagan was later charged over stealing the wine but charges
were dropped and he was sent to a mental health institution.
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