Revisiting the case of the teenager who failed to assassinate the Queen of England

Within a few months of 1981, Queen Elizabeth II was the target of two failed assassination attempts, both involving teenage gunmen.

The Queen of England is one of the most closely guarded people on the planet. But nearly 38 years ago, on June 13, 1981, a 17-year-old boy broke through security barriers and fired a revolver at the Queen’s motorcade from just 10 feet away.

Not just one shot, the teenager named Marcus Sarjeant fired a series of half a dozen bullets, until the gun was empty. But how did the Queen escape death and not even know about this daring plot?

According to Sarjeant’s testimony, he was “inspired” to plot the assassination of the Queen after the deaths of John Lennon (Beatles’ leader), President John F. Kennedy, and the failed assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. Sarjeant was particularly haunted by the “fame” that Mark David Chapman gained after shooting Lennon. He came up with the idea of ​​doing something similar so that he too would be remembered by the world.

Sarjeant’s ideas are not new, people have had such thoughts since ancient times in history, the most famous example being 2,000 years ago, when the criminal Herostratus destroyed the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world so that history would forever remember his name.

After deciding to make history, Sarjeant wrote in his notebook: “I will amaze and fascinate the world with just a gun… I will become the most famous teenager in the world.”

Sarjeant sought to acquire a gun, but fortunately for the Queen, he was prevented from doing so by Britain’s strict gun and ammunition control laws. He could not buy ammunition for his father’s Colt revolver, nor could he buy his own gun, despite joining a gun club. Sarjeant eventually bought a Colt Python replica, which fired only dummy bullets.

He posed for pictures with his newly purchased replica gun and his father’s empty Colt. Sarjeant sent the two pictures to several magazines along with a letter explaining his crazy intentions. The “delusional” teenager also sent a letter to the Queen saying: “Dear Queen, do not attend the parade today because there is an assassin waiting to kill you.” But the letter did not reach its recipient until three days after Sarjeant fired the fake bullet at the Queen.

On the day of the Royal Army Parade to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, from Buckingham Palace to The Mall, Sarjeant waited patiently. As soon as he spotted the Queen riding towards him, he rushed forward and fired all six bullets from his gun at her, an action that was just enough to startle the Queen’s 19-year-old horse.

The Queen didn’t really react much other than to soothe the horse and continue smiling as if nothing had happened.

Of course, seconds after the fake shots were fired, the Queen’s personal guard tackled Sarjeant. He was imprisoned and placed under heavy guard. When the trial began, because the gun could only fire fake bullets, Sarjeant could not technically be tried for attempted assassination. Instead, Sarjeant was tried under Section 2 of the Treason Act 1842, for “witnessing a shot at the Queen, with intent to give warning.”

Sarjeant was eventually sentenced to five years in prison, because the judge found that he had attempted to carry out the assassination plot by trying to buy guns, ammunition, and obtaining a license to use them, and that if he had had a loaded gun, he would have killed the Queen. Sarjeant served three years in prison and was released early in 1984.

But that wasn’t the only assassination attempt on the Queen. A newly declassified document from 2018 revealed another attempt by a teenager to kill the head of the British royal family while she was on a visit to New Zealand in 1981.

The contents of the declassified documents show that New Zealand police tried to cover up the incident for 37 years.

In 1981, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, on a royal tour of New Zealand (a Commonwealth country), attended a parade in Dunedin on October 14. While she was in the car, a 17-year-old boy named Christopher John Lewis was waiting with a .22 rifle on the fifth floor of a building across the street.

According to documents released by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS), as the Queen stepped out of the carriage, John Lewis fired at her but the bullet went high up. “Lewis initially intended to assassinate the Queen,” the document said. However, he “did not have a suitable point of reference from which to shoot, nor a rifle powerful enough for the assassination distance.”

Lewis was later arrested by police with the gun in evidence. He committed suicide in 1997 while in prison for several robberies and one murder. At the time of the attempted assassination, police did not charge Lewis with attempted murder, but only with illegal possession and use of a firearm. 

According to the declassified document, SIS was concerned that if the incident was exposed, there would be no more visits by British Royal Family members to New Zealand in the future.