Britain’s Queen Camilla fought train attacker with her shoe, new book reveals

Britain’s Queen Camilla used the heel of her shoe as a teenager to fight off a sexual assault on a train to London’s Paddington station, a new book on the relationship between the royal family and government officials revealed on Monday.

‘Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street’ by Valentine Low, being serialised in ‘The Times’ newspaper this week, recounts a conversation between King Charles III’s wife and Boris Johnson, who was the Mayor of London at the time in 2008.

A man is said to have been inappropriately touching Camilla Shand, then aged 16 or 17, when she took off her shoe and hit him with it.

“I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel,” reads the account from the book.

Once the train pulled into Paddington station, she found a uniformed officer and got the culprit arrested for the assault.

“The relevance of this conversation was that Johnson at the time wanted to open three rape crisis centres. There was already one in south London, and he wanted to open ones in east, west and north London,” the author notes, adding that Camilla went on to inaugurate some of these new centres.

Buckingham Palace did not make an official statement on the report, but also did not dispute the details.

“She did the responsible thing. Not only was she resourceful and strong, she was a responsible citizen in making sure the man was arrested,” the book’s author told the BBC.

As patron of the charity SafeLives, 78-year-old Camilla often visits women’s refuges and rape crisis centres across the UK and globally. She has been outspoken about the courage of those who have experienced domestic violence and why they should not feel fear or stigma in coming forward.

In a speech in 2020, she said: “Through my work, I have talked to many women who have lived with coercive control and domestic violence and, thankfully, come out at the other end as the victors, not the victims.

“They are some of the bravest people I have ever met. Their stories are harrowing and have reduced even the toughest of their listeners to tears. That is why it is so vital that these survivors should no longer feel any shame or any blame.”

Sources close to the royal have indicated that she has not gone public with the attempted attack on public transport before to avoid drawing attention to her experience rather than to the victims she works with.

‘Power and the Palace’ by Valentine Low, a former royal correspondent for ‘The Times’, is set to hit the stands next week. It is based on nearly 100 interviews with senior politicians, top civil servants, royal aides and constitutional experts to shine a light on the often secretive relationship between the British monarchy and the government.