In the early morning on July 9, 1982, a man named Michael Fagan jumped a fence at Buckingham Palace, climbed a drainpipe, entered an unlocked . Mike had been fighting pancreatic cancer since his diagnosis in February of this year. "I walked straight in. "I don't know why I did it; something just got into my head," Fagan said. You can unsubscribe at any time. The episode takes us out onto the streets of Margaret Thatcher's Britain, 1982, where unemployment has risen above three million - the highest rate since the 1930s depression. In court, Fagan even claimed that he had "done the Queen a favour" by exposing the lax security measures (as reported by The Times on September 24th 1982). "People who have done marvelous things get to kneel in front of her to be honored," Fagan said, "but I actually sat on her bed and almost got to talk to her.". The investigation resulted in the suspension of one security officer, the removal from duty of two others, and a significant reinvestment in palace security. Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Mr Fagan added that Buckingham Palace wasn't as well kept as the film suggests. For her to be dragged through the dirt by me isn't nice. Fagan was married in 1972, and had four children, aged 3 to 10. The Crown accurately depicts Fagan's path to the Queen's bedroombut fictionalizes what happened after he really got there. Speaking to The Independent, Fagan recalled the moment he woke the nightgown-clad Queen up at 7:15 a.m. "Then she speaks and it's like the finest glass you can imagine breaking: 'Wawrt are you doing here?!'" Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 'It was like The Addams Family house, just old and flaky. Clearly, Fagan had a knack for scaling the 14-foot palace walls, topped with barbed wire and revolving spikes, because he did it more than once. Fagan did spend four years in prison after being arrested in 1997 for conspiring to supply heroin with his wife, Christine, and their 20-year-old son. before getting out the room. ', She goes on to cite unemployment figures to Thatcher, who says: 'If unemployment is temporarily high, it is a necessary side effect to the medicine we are administering to the British economy.'. When Fagan visits his local Member of Parliament to complain about Thatchers policies, the MP jokingly encourages him to voice his complaints to the Queen. The Queen thought Buckingham Palace prowler Michael Fagan was a 'drunk member of staff', her former protection officer has revealed. Two alarms were tripped, but the police decided to turn them off, believing them to be faulty. In 1972, he married his wife Christine, with whom he had four children. Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan, radio interview 1993. She didn't accept. Fagan was arrested shortly thereafter. [15] In 2020, Tom Brooke played Fagan in the fifth episode of season 4 of The Crown. He was released three months later, according to the BBC. After previously seeking aid through government channels without avail, the unemployed, divorced decorator sought help elsewhere: with Her Royal Highness herself. [1] At some point in the 1970s1980s, Fagan was a member of a North London branch of the Workers Revolutionary Party. It was one of the most extraordinary moments of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, and one that is still unbelievable 40 years later. Michael T. "Mike" Fagan, 71, of Meadowlakes, Texas, passed away July 28, 2015, at his home. In 1997, Fagan, his wife, and their 20-year-old son were charged with conspiring to sell heroin. People who have done marvelous things get to kneel in front of her to be honored, Fagan said, but I actually sat on her bed and almost got to talk to her., In a 2012 interview, Fagan was asked if he had a message for the Queen on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee, a national celebration marking her sixty years on the throne. However, he was acquitted of that charge by a jury in September 1982. She went past me and ran out of the room; her little bare feet running across the floor.". Speaking to The Sun, he said that he did not have any regrets for his palace visits: "People who have done marvellous things get to kneel in front of her to be honoured. "I found rooms saying. Back then, trespassing was only a civil offense rather than a criminal one. But The Crown did take significant creative license. Regina is Latin for "queen.". But what was the real story behind their meeting? The Crown imagines what they might have said to one another. [18], Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, "Michael Fagan: 'Her nightie was one of those Liberty prints, down to her knees', "Text of Scotland Yard's Report On July 9 Intrusion into Buckingham Palace", "Alex Mitchell's Weekly Notebook David Bowie's brush with fascism and the occult", "Queen's bedroom intruder describes moment he broke in and the 'shoddy' decor", "Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan: what happened and why did he break in? It was the first break-in that sent him to court, where he was charged with the theft of Prince Charles wineand summarily acquitted by a jury in just 14 minutes. So I go over and draw the curtain back, just to make sure, and suddenly she sat up," Fagan saidjust as he does in The Crown. He did not express any regrets for his palace excursions. In 1966, he left home at 18 to run away from his father, who Fagan said was violent. In the nearly four decades since breaking and entering at the palace, Fagan has been charged with a myriad of crimes, including assaulting a police officer, dealing heroin (for which he served four years in prison), and indecent exposure (a misunderstanding, he insists). During the episode,Tom Brooke's Michael Fagan struggles to cope with the breakup of his relationship and can be seen joining long lines of people signing up for the dole. She's destroying the country.'. Two years later I was still coming down. It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears; I tried one throne and was like 'this one's too soft'. MICHAEL FAGAN OBITUARY. "I hope she lives to be a hundred. Smooth's All Time Top 500 with Eamonn Kelly Speaking to FEMAIL, he said: 'Hes got his own agenda. Photo: R. Brigden/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. In 1997, Fagan (together with his wife and 20-year-old son) was imprisoned for four years for conspiring to supply heroin. Netflix took a lot of liberties depicting his conversation with the Queen. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. He had two younger sisters, Marjorie and Elizabeth. Michael Fagan does claim to have broken into Buckingham Palace twice, as shown on The Crown. Mr Fagan, 74, climbed up a drainpipe and broke into the royal. He served four years in prison. The Times detailed that it was only when Fagan asked for a cigarette that the Queen pointed out that there were none in the room, before taking "the opportunity to summon help" by calling a footman. He pleads with the monarch to 'save us all from her Thatcher. He did suffer from a heart attack and COVID-19 earlier this year, he told The Sun. Caroline is a writer and editor with almost a decade of experience. That's another matter altogether. Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace not once but twice, with the most famed security breach taking place on July 9th 1982, when he came face to face with The Queen himself. With the episode "Fagan," The Crown authentically recreates the logistics of the subject's intrusion. He enters the building through a window and is able to walk into the throne room, where he sits in one of the thrones, before drinking a bottle of wine and smashing a vase. He was born January 12, 1939 in Norwalk, son of the late Kenneth Fagan and Gretchen (Coenen) Fagan. William John Fagan Jr.; son, Brandon Michael Fagan; wife, Misty, and their two children, Patrick and Jacob; and countless colleagues, friend and students who . Fagan himself has since described the Queen's bedroom interior, right down to the size of her bed and the details of her knee-length nightgown; but again, he said nothing to suggest that the pair shared a conversation while he was sat on her bed. Sign up to receive the freshest reviews and recommendations for Streaming & On Demand. Moreover, this couple is a co-host of Free Cookies. They had to take a broad creative license to make their point. According to The Crown, Fagan is still living in London, and still thinking of the Queen. Looking for something else to watch? You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. "I was scareder than I'd ever been in my life," Fagan said of what happened next. The intruder has gone down in historyand become the subject of a new episode of The Crown. Fagan famously managed to scale the Palace walls before. Then he slipped into the chambers of Queen Elizabeth II. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems. The Buckingham Palace dust-up turned Fagan into an unlikely celebrity, rendering him a degree of infamy that he has seemingly relished. The story actually begins about a month before the July incident, when Fagan (whom youll come to see as something of an unreliable narrator) claims he broke into Buckingham Palace for the first time on June 7, 1982, the day his wife left him. "But I actually sat on her bed and almost got to talk to her. Fagan's real break-in and encounter, however, unfolded quite differently. The Times' lead front-page story on Tuesday 13th July 1982 (titled 'Gaps in palace security thrown up by intruder') revealed that for his second break-in, Fagan climbed into the palace via an unchecked window in the offices of Vice Admiral Sir Peter Ashmore, the Master of the Household. In one of the most high-profile security breaches in royal history, British man Michael Fagan, then 31, managed to scale palace walls and make his way into Queen Elizabeth's chambers while she . Fagans wine theft. After reaching the Queen's room, Fagan second-guessed himself. He had a heart attack and had COVID-19 in 2020. The book also described how Fagan's thumb was cut, and "dripped" blood onto the Queen's "bedclothes" (as reviewed in The Times on 29th September 1983). You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. He was committed to a mental hospital at sentencing, but by the following January a medical tribunal at the hospital determined that he no longer needed to be detained, according to the New York Times. His wife, Christine, left him just weeks earlier, which must have had a huge impact on his mental state. Kate Fagan [born on November 15, 1981] is an American author, reporter, and commentator. Stream Season 4 of The Crown on Netflix now. He climbed through an unlocked window and into the palaces historic halls, undetected by cameras or security. However, Fagan did go on to commit more crimes. What Happened to Michael Fagan After He Snuck Into the Queen's Bedroom? The Scotland Yard report from the time revealed that while the night alarm bell (connected to the corridor outside the Queen's room and to the pantry) worked in theory, by a series of coincidences no one heard or responded to it. In 1982, Fagan's father said his son only wanted "to prove how easy it was to get in" to the palace, and not harm the Queen, per The Guardian. All I found were some bins with Corgi Food written on them. "[7] He spent the next three months in a psychiatric hospital[8] before being released on 21 January 1983. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Entering the royal apartments, Michael Fagan "spent ten minutes" in the Queen's bedchamber in the early hours of Friday morning, 9th July 1982 (via The Times front-page, 3th July 1982), after entering at 7.15am and opening the curtains. Michael Fagan, 70, of north London, described the fifth episode of the new series of The Crown, which features his infamous break-in, as a 'complete fiction' and accused creator Peter Morgan of having his 'own agenda'. The intruder snuck into Buckingham Palace in 1982 and created one of Britain's biggest security scandals. Fagan made his way through the halls of Buckingham Palace unimpeded, twice setting off alarms without being caught. In 1972 he married his wife, Christine, with whom he would go on to have four children. "Nah! he scoffs at the notion of a long conversation with Her Majesty. "[I] walk past her bed and it looks too small to be the Queen. I eventually found a door and walked out into the back gardens, climbed over the wall and walked down the Mall, looking back and thinking 'ooh,'" he told the Independent. But the Queen expresses sympathy for Fagan, questioning the prime minister about the state of the 'moral economy' in the UK. The man who broke into the Queen's Buckingham Palace bedroom in 1982 has criticised Netflixfor 'having a pop at the Queen'. An out-of-work painter and decorator with convictions for heroin dealing and a number of petty crimes, Fagan was struggling after the breakdown of his marriage - his wife, Christine, had left. Several weeks before Fagan was arrested at the royal residence, he actually broke into the palace using a similar method. They don't know what happened in there," he told The Telegraph. Aged 73 in 2022, Michael Fagan is reportedly still living in London. By entering your details, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and privacy policy. He added: Sometimes you have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.. Fagan claimed he navigated by "[following] the pictures" to the right room in 1982, but then during a 1993 BBC radio interview, edited himself: "I don't know how the hell I found her.". ", Curiously, Fagan added: "Everything about it is fiction. In the first anteroom to the Queens chambers, Fagan hatched a plan to slit his wrists in front of Her Majesty. The right to work, the right to be ill, the right to be old, the right to be frail, to be humangone.. One detail of The Crowns depiction that is true? In July 1982, Mr Fagan, then 33, scaled the Palace's 14ft parameter wall for the second time in two months, shinned up a drain pipe and climbed through an unlocked window. And the second time, he did wander into the queens bedroom for 10 uninterrupted minutes until she was able to get help. Michael Fagan was a painter and decorator from Clerkenwell, London, born 8th August 1948. "It was very ordinary. According to a story from The Guardian following the incident, he initially told the police that he broke in to see the Queen because he was in love with her, but on other occasions he has suggested that he thought the Queen might be able to help him in some way, per The Sun, or, as he told the Independent, that the decision was fueled by a prolonged reaction to taking hallucinogenic mushrooms several months before. The Hollywood Reporter claims that in the episode, the Queen and Fagan discuss "love, family and freedom." ", Sir Brian May believes Freddie Mercury would've been 'honoured long ago' if he were, King Charles III Coronation playlist: Classic songs from The Beatles, Queen, Tom Jones, Smooth's All Time Top 500 with Eamonn Kelly. However, speaking in 2012, he said she left the room immediately to find security. The only person he hurt was himself. 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