NEED TO KNOW
- Princess Anne, then 23, was nearly kidnapped near Buckingham Palace on March 20, 1974.
- Gunman Ian Ball blocked their car and shot at Royal Protection Officer James Beaton.
- Anne famously told her attacker, “Not bloody likely!” when he tried to force her out.
- Ball was arrested and sentenced to life in a secure mental health facility.
- The plot included handcuffs, tranquillisers, and a ransom demand of $4 million (around $50 million today).
On March 20, 1974, Princess Anne was 23 years old and revelling in her life as a newlywed, having married Captain Mark Phillips four months earlier.
The couple had spent the evening at a charity fundraiser and were on their way to Buckingham Palace when, without warning, their lives took a near-fatal turn.
Anne, Mark, her lady-in waiting, chauffeur Alexander Callender and Royal Protection Officer Inspector James Wallace Beaton were less than 200 metres from the palace, when a white Ford Escort overtook their car and stopped, blocking their path.
Inspector Beaton, a member of Scotland Yard’s special operations branch, described the moment he first laid eyes on the princess’ would-be kidnapper, Ian Ball.
“I got out of the car, and he shot at me,” Inspector Beaton told the BBC. “We had no communications in the car – we were on our own.
“I got down level with the car and I heard Princess Anne saying to Ball, ‘Why do you want me?’ She was cool, calm and collected,” he recalled.
It was then that Ball, a 26-year-old unemployed labourer suffering from a mental illness, attempted to get inside the car while Anne and Mark used every ounce of strength to keep the rear passenger doors shut.
“He said I had to go with him, can’t remember why,” Anne, now 75, said in an interview with TV host Michael Parkinson years later.
“I said I didn’t think I wanted to go. We had a fairly low-key discussion on how it would be much better if he moved away and we’d all forget about it.”
The wounded bodyguard chose that moment to make his move on Ball. His brave actions would leave him fighting for his life with three gunshot wounds.
“I got behind the car and tried to shoot him, but because he’d shot me in the chest, my arm was floppy and the gun jammed,” he recalled. “I went into the car and Ball turned back and fired … the bullet went into my heart. He shot me again in the abdomen.”
Anne remembers her attacker coming inside the vehicle and pointing the gun at her, demanding she cooperate.
“When he shot the policeman, we managed to get the door closed, but he got the door open again,” she added in the interview.
“In the process of him getting the door back open, the back of my dress split, all the shoulders went out of it. That was his most dangerous moment. I lost my rag at that stage. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled. I kept saying I didn’t want to get out of the car, and I was not going to get out of the car.”
In documented evidence released later under the Thirty Years Rule, Anne then famously stated that her response to his demand that she exit the car was “Not bloody likely!”
As more bystanders approached Ball, Anne tried to make her own escape.
“I was lying flat on my back on the floor of the car. I could reach the door handle and I put my feet over my head and did a backward somersault onto the road,” she also told Michael Parkinson.
It was then that chauffeur Alexander Callender stepped out to confront Ball, who shot him in the chest and he fell back into the car. Throughout, Anne maintained a conversation with her assailant Ball, eventually convincing him to flee.
“The police were there at that stage, and that’s when I said, ‘Go on, now’s your chance,’ then he legged it off towards St. James’s Park and was smothered by the police rugby team,” Anne said.
Ball was arrested and sentenced to a life term in a secure mental health facility after pleading guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping charges.
In the rented Ford were handcuffs, tranquillisers, and a ransom letter addressed to the Queen demanding $4 million ransom, approximately $50 million today.
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