Frank Rondel
Britain’s Queen Camilla has publicly shared for the first time her personal experience of indecent assault, describing the incident as a formative moment in her awareness of violence against women, reports Customreceipt with reference to AP. Speaking in a BBC interview, the queen recounted how, as a teenager in the 1960s, she was attacked by a man on a train and managed to fend him off.
Recalling the experience, Camilla described, “I was reading my book, and you know, this boy, man, attacked me, and I did fight back. And I remember getting off the train and my mother looking at me and saying, ‘Why is your hair standing on end?’ and ‘Why is a button missing from your coat?’” She explained that the attack left her furious but remained a private memory for many years, until she heard other women share similar experiences.
The queen emphasized that her decision to speak out was driven by the persistent stigma surrounding domestic abuse, a “taboo subject” that obscures the severity of the problem. She stated, “I thought, well, if I’ve got a tiny soapbox to stand on, I’d like to stand on it. And there’s not a lot I can do except talk to people and get people together.”
These remarks came during a group interview with surviving relatives of Louise Hunt, 25, her sister Hannah, 28, and their mother Carol, 61, who were tragically killed by Louise’s ex-partner in July 2024 near London. Camilla praised the efforts of former racing commentator John Hunt and his daughter Amy in combating domestic violence, saying, “Wherever your family is now, they’d be so proud of you both. And they must be, from above, smiling down on you and thinking, ‘My goodness me, what a wonderful, wonderful father, husband, sister. They’d just be so proud of you both.’”
Although this marks the first time the queen has publicly spoken about her assault, it was previously recounted in the book Power and the Palace by Valentine Low, a former royal correspondent for the Times of London. The book details that Camilla, en route to London’s Paddington Station, was attacked by a man sitting next to her who attempted to touch her. She defended herself by striking him with her shoe and reported the incident to a uniformed officer at the station, leading to his arrest.
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