Michael Fagan

Michael Fagan (born 8 August 1948) is a British citizen who intruded into Queen Elizabeth II's bedroom in Buckingham Palace in 1982. His father was a steel erector and a "champion" safe-breaker. He had two younger sisters, Marjorie and Elizabeth.

Break-ins First entry

On 7 June 1982, Fagan intruded into Buckingham Palace for the first time. He stated that he shimmied up a drainpipe to a third-floor window and startled a housemaid, who called security. He disappeared before guards arrived, who then disbelieved the housemaid's report. Fagan said he wandered around for the next half-hour while eating cheese and crackers. Three alarms in total were tripped, but the police turned them off, believing they were faulty. He viewed royal portraits and sat for some time on a throne. He also spoke of entering the post room. He drank half a bottle of wine, intending to wait until his capture, but eventually became tired and left. The Queen phoned the palace switchboard twice for police, but none arrived, so she used her bedside alarm bell. She also beckoned a housemaid in the corridor, who was quickly dispatched to seek urgent help. The duty footman, Paul Whybrew, who had been walking the Queen's dogs, arrived, 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. The Home Secretary, who held sole responsibility for the police, William Whitelaw, offered his resignation but it was refused by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. 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 three months in a psychiatric hospital before being released on 21 January 1983.

It was not until 2005, when Buckingham Palace became a "designated site" for the purposes of section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, that trespass at the palace became a criminal offence.

Later life Two years after entering Buckingham Palace, Fagan attacked a policeman at a café in Fishguard, Wales, and was given a three-month suspended sentence. In 1983, Fagan recorded a cover version of the Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen" with punk band the Bollock Brothers. 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. an hour-long 2011 TV documentary directed by the artist Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz charting the history of people behaving oddly in public.

After the death of the Queen on 8 September 2022, Fagan told reporters that he had lit a candle in her memory at a local church.

In fiction The intrusion was adapted in 2012 for an episode of Sky Arts' Playhouse Presents series entitled "Walking the Dogs", a one-off British comedy drama featuring Emma Thompson as the Queen and Eddie Marsan as the intruder. In 2020, Tom Brooke played Fagan in the fifth episode of season 4 of The Crown. Lyrics 'So I broke into the Palace With a sponge and a rusty spanner ...' in The Smiths song The Queen Is Dead were inspired by the trespass. The intrusion also inspired Trinidadian calypso singer Mighty Sparrow to write his ironic song "Phillip My Dear", very loosely based on the event.