Ian Ball, the gunman who shot police officers during a botched attempt to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974, has claimed he is innocent, six years after being released from a psychiatric hospital.
Ball, using the pseudonym Anthony Stewart, said he expected Queen Elizabeth II's daughter to have been swapped for a double and the gunpowder removed from his bullets before the attack on The Mall in March 1974. In an interview with the Daily Mail, he alleged the queen was the "ringleader" of a plot that led to his wrongful imprisonment.
Ball, then 26, chased Princess Anne and her then-husband Captain Mark Phillips in their limousine through central London after a charity film screening. He forced their car to stop yards from Buckingham Palace, shooting her bodyguard Jim Beaton, chauffeur, a police officer, and a journalist. The princess was famously reported to have said "not bloody likely" when told to come with him, though Ball now denies this, claiming she told him to "go away". He was subdued by retired heavyweight boxer Ronnie Russell.
Ball pleaded guilty to attempted murder, attempted kidnap and wounding at the Old Bailey. He was detained without limit under the Mental Health Act, spending 45 years in Broadmoor and Rampton psychiatric hospitals before his release in 2019. He says the plot was always intended to fail, designed to generate publicity for an autobiography, and that he expected £10,000 in royalties. He also claimed an apparent police officer, "Frank", was supposed to have swapped the bullets and the princess.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said restricted patients can be recalled to hospital if their mental health deteriorates and risk becomes unmanageable in the community. Ball has self-published a novel about the incident, To Kidnap a Princess.
