Queen Camilla was assaulted as a teenager, royal correspondent Valentine Low has claimed.
In an excerpt of her new book titled Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy published by The Times, Low said the incident occurred when 78-year-old Camilla was travelling on a train to Paddington, London, at the age of 16 or 17.
She is said to have fought off her attacker with her shoe.
King Charles’ wife shared the details of the ordeal with then-London Mayor Boris Johnson in 2008 when he was invited to Clarence House.
According to Low, she told Johnson, “Some guy was moving his hand further and further”, so “I did what my mother taught me to.”
“I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel.”
When her train eventually arrived at Paddington, Low said Camilla jumped off and found “a guy in uniform” who she told ‘that man just attacked me’.”
The alleged attacker was later arrested.
Low said the relevance of Camilla’s conversation with Johnston was he, at the time, wanted to open three rape crisis centres in the UK.
A centre already existed in south London, and Johnston wanted to open more in the east, west, and north of the capital of England.
Johnson’s former communications director Guto Harri said Camilla “formally opened two out of three of them”.
“Nobody asked why the interest, why the commitment,” Mr Harri said.
“But that’s what it went back to.”
Camilla has been raising awareness and advocating for victims of rape and sexual abuse to overcome their trauma for more than a decade.
In 2013, the then Duchess of Cornwall met with rape victims and support groups at Clarence House, where she introduced a plan to help them.
She put together about 750 wash bags, created by Clarence House staff and filled with luxury toiletries, to be distributed to victims at the centres.
Camilla’s advocacy for helping domestic abuse survivors was covered in the 2024 ITV documentary Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors.
“You can imagine how terrifying it is for a woman to be stuck with a very violent partner, feeling that fear every single day,” she said in the documentary.
Camilla called for urgency to challenge a culture where it appears “violence against women is normal”.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.skynews.com.au ’
