Some of the files at the National Archives at Kew in west London about national security dating from the 1980s are not open to the public. Two about the Michael Fagan affair are freely viewable.
One is a 150-page file, PREM 19/1623 about the dry-sounding review of the law of โtrespass on residential premisesโ by the Home Secretary Leon Brittan. That arose from the highly embarrassing intrusion by a Londoner, Michael Fagan, into Buckingham Palace in July 1982. The end of the file has a preliminary report into โtwo separate incidentsโ that, it turned out, were due to Fagan. First, on a Friday night, June 7, 1982, a 19-year-old Buckingham Palace housemaid saw a manโs hand and possibly face outside her third floor bedroom window, and reported it to the Police Lodge at the Palace. A police sergeant attended and accepted the story (despite the sheer drop from the window ledge). Police made a search; no-one was found. The Queen wasnโt there at the time โ public knowledge, because the Royal Standard was not flying. Next day, scenes of crime police found fingerprints. Early Friday morning, July 9, an off-duty police sergeant saw a man on the Palace railings. An alert went to the police control room. Fagan was caught, at first facetiously giving his name as the imprisoned Nazi Rudolf Hess. Senior police interviewed Fagan twice.
‘Emotionally disturbed’
It turned out Faganโs fingerprints matched the June 7 ones, and he had stolen a small bottle of wine (the loss reported by another palace resident on June 8). Among the issues: was Fagan of sound mind? He had recently separated from his wife and children and was unhappy. According to his story, the night before when he entered the Palace again and talked with the Queen, he had drunk whisky. He admitted braking a glass ashtray and kept a piece of glass, to slash his wrists, he claimed. In his words he reached the Queenโs bedroom by โfollowing the picturesโ, that is, the artworks on the walls. Those interviewing him described him as โobviously disturbedโ. Police concluded Fagan really did find the Queenโs bedroom by โfollowing the picturesโ and was suffering a nervous breakdown. Fagan appeared at Bow Street magistrates court (now a hotel) the next day, Saturday, July 10, charged with trespass and theft of the wine โ that is, the June offence, and remanded in custody. The Daily Express broke the story.
Conclusions
How much โdangerโ (a word used in the Commons by Whitelaw) had the Queen been in? While a senior police detective described Fagan as โwretchedโ, he also concluded the security breach was โmost grave and seriousโ.ย Asย a consultation paper set out, English law already covered many of the circumstances whereby someone might come to harm due to a trespasser โ as a burglar, a squatter, someone doing criminal damage, or causing a โbreach of the peaceโ or โgatecrashers at social occasionsโ. โBut criminal sanctions do not apply in the vast majority of cases of simple trespass.โ The paper went on to consider โunwelcome intrudersโ, โfor example the case of a man trespassing on residential premises and entering the bedroom of a woman or child โ whatever his motive may be โ or a โPeeping Tomโโ โ who might be acting โobjectionablyโ even if the peeper was on neighbouring land. Someone might be acting offensively, or unreasonably; but was it criminal? โShould there be special sanctions for the protection of certain individuals or institutions especially vulnerable to these forms of abuse?โ
The answer, eventually, was the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, covering royal palaces and VIP-national security places as โprotected sites โ nuclear power stations, GCHQ at Cheltenham, besides the Houses of Parliament and the Chequers estate.
Cabinet agenda
The โsecurity of the Royal familyโ was the first item on the agenda โ ahead of such perennials as the Middle East under foreign affairs, and striking train drivers under industrial affairs – of the Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street on Thursday morning, July 15, 1982, as freely downloadable as file CAB 128/74/8 from the National Archives website.
Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw told ministers and PM Margaret Thatcher that he was conducting โextensive consultationsโ, and โhoped to be in a position to make a further statementโ the following Wednesday. According to the minutes: โIt was clear that the failure of security at the Palace was primarily due to human error rather than to any defect in the arrangements.โ A division of responsibility over security of royals (which was with โapproval of the Palace authoritiesโ โ left unsaid was the useful spreading of blame) had to end. โThe Cabinet took note.โ
Statements
The file includes Whitelawโs statements to MPs, published in Hansard, of July 12 and 21. The first statement was an occasion for MPs (and indeed Whitelaw) to register their shock โ what if the intruder had been a determined terrorist?
Whitelaw began on July 21 with the resignation of the Queenโs police officer, โfollowing his confession of having had over a number of years a homosexual relationship with a male prostituteโ. Whitelaw had tasked Lord Bridge (a retired and trusted civil servant who was chair of the security commission) โto investigateโ. Bridgeโs report into vetting of the police is kept at the National Archives and is closed.
‘Failures’
As for Faganโs breach of the Palaceโs security, Whitelaw admitted โtechnical failuresโ, though โthe basic cause of the breakdown of security was a failure by the police to respond efficiently and urgentlyโ. Whitelaw also spoke of โslackness and weakness in supervisionโ. A commander had resigned and a chief inspector had been transferred.
In time-honoured fashion the authorities had bolted (literally?) the stable doors after the horse had bolted. More uniformed police officers were on duty at the Palace; and โsome new technical security devicesโ installed (and โall thoroughly testedโ).
As for the โshocking eventsโ of the July 9 break-in, Whitelaw said Queen Elizabeth II handled it โwith great composure and resolutionโ, โbut it is intolerable that Her Majesty should have been exposed to this intrusion and put at risk in this wayโ. Equally time-honoured was the phrase that โthe lessons of this incident must be learnedโ. The Shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley raised something that Whitelaw had not but Dellow did in his interim reports; โprevious incursionsโ. Whitelaw in reply admitted that he visited the Palace โafter the other intrusionsโ. Other MPs went on to point out that Earl Mountbatten had been murdered (by Irish republicans) in August 1979 on holiday in the Republic of Ireland. That had led to the (in Whitelawโs words) โconsiderable expenditure of ยฃ2m on security improvements for Royal residences. Whitelaw did quote from a first report by Dellow โthat if police officers had been alert and competent, Fagan would have been apprehended well before he got close to the Private Apartmentsโ. As Whitelaw added, for all the tech in place, some โwas not used and in other cases it was not observedโ.
Ingham note
The affair rumbled on, partly fuelled by the press. One typed, July 14 page in the file is from Bernard Ingham, who famously handled Mrs Thatcherโs press relations. Ingham passed on what the โLobbyโ (reporters who covered Parliament) were saying as their โline of attackโ (which showed the adversarial attitude of all). Why did the police always investigate their own failures? And โbut for the Expressโ, in other words the Daily Express publicising the affair, โGovernment would have hushed up the whole thingโ.
In January 1983 an MP raised at Prime Ministerโs Questions the โanxiety that Michael Fagan was released from hospital without any surveillanceโ. In reply Mrs Thatcher recognised the โdeep feelingsโ expressed. The press, as it did until it became too dangerous in the mid-2000s, made hay by trying to breach security of high profile sites. For example in November 1982 two Sun reporters were arrested in the grounds of Highgrove (โsubsequently released and their cameras returned to themโ). Highgrove remains the residence of King Charles III, then Prince Charles. The authorities moved against five newspapers for publishing so much material about the Fagan case that they โimpededโ justice, in other words would prejudice a court case.
Final report
In November 1982, Met Police Assistant Commissioner John Dellow sent in his third and final report on Buckingham Palace security. The Home Secretary made it plain that he would not publish or make any statement about it. Among Mr Dellowโs recommendations was an organisational one, that would mean a change for ministers: Dellow was for โa unified Protection Department covering Royalty, Ministerial, Diplomatic and Special Escortโ. Ministers were instead protected by Met Police Special branch, who under Mr Dellowโs proposal โwould be seconded to the Protection Departmentโ. The Met, according to a note, โstrongly opposedโ such a change, and the upshot was that the Home Secretary was โshelving the recommendation indefinitelyโ. As a sign of how those at the top of the police kept such decisions to themselves, the note ended: โwe should not assume that our own Special branch officers know about itโ, namely the suggested change.
Whitelaw had mentioned Dellowโs โinquiryโ in his statement to the House of Commons on July 21, asking Dellow โto draw on all sources of available expertise, in the public and private sectorsโ. A DAC (deputy assistant commissioner) was now in command of a new โroyalty protection departmentโ.
Mr Dellowโs report is separately kept at the archives at Kew; but is closed, although due for ‘re-consideration’ in 2026. Closed also is a later file about Buckingham Palace; and a 1985 file about Holyrood House and Balmoral; and likewise files about the security of Mrs Thatcherโs children Mark and Carol while she was PM; and about Mrs Thatcher’s protection in the later 1980s. We do know from the public file that Mr Dellow reviewed royal โresidencesโ besides the events of two intrusions by Fagan, one on June 7 and the infamous one of July 9 when Fagan spoke with the Queen.
Other intrusions
Intrusions at Buckingham Palace in particular and royal residences in general have been chronic. The most infamous ones include by the campaigners โFathers 4 Justiceโ, and by a self-styled โcomedy terroristโ into Windsor Castle to gatecrash Prince Williamโs 21st birthday party, each in 2003. The PREM 19/1623 file ends with a single page letter of August 1981 when the Home Office asked the police for a briefing about an incident reported in The Sun newspaper about a young man founded in the grounds of Buckingham Palace by patrolling police. A police surgeon โdiagnosed the classic symptoms of schizophreniaโ. Police took him to a mental hospital.
