The Queens Security: The Ins and Outs of The Foot Guards

Whilst The Foot Guards are also fully operational soldiers, part of their duties is of course guarding The Queen and her residences. The duty of mounting 'Queen's Guard' as it's known within the Army is one which many also take on with great pride. The guards remain a fully functional part of royal defences though through the years they have become a tourist attraction.

Although formerly the guards were able to be located among the public, in current times, more and more of the sentry posts have been moved away from the public because of incidents involving tourists interfering with the guards' job. Most recently, the sentry posts at Clarence House were moved behind a chain linked fence when a guardsman in the Coldstream Guardsassaulted a tourist who was mocking him, pretending to march alongside him. In London, the only open sentry posts remaining not usually behind any sort fence are those at the Pall Mall entrance to St James's Palace.

There has been multiple accounts of intruders at the Queen’s Palace, without the help of Brighton Locksmiths. Buckingham Palace, in London. Here are a few examples:

• Victor Miller, a 37-year-old DJ, was arrested last September in the palace grounds and was later charged with trespass. He climbed a 12ft fence to breach palace security, before being tracked down and taken into custody at a location 'open to the public during the day'.

• Talhat Rehman, 54, was filmed holding the blade to his own neck. The middle-aged man walked through crowds of tourists grasping two large kitchen knives before police surrounded him and used a Taser stun gun to neutralise him.

• Jason Hatch, a member of the group Fathers4Justice, then unfurled a banner and spent five hours in full public view before he was arrested by police. The ease with which he had made it into the palace prompted an urgent review of Royal security. A particularly embarrassing episode in 2004 saw a protester dressed as Batman sneak onto a ledge next to a balcony in the Palace after using a ladder to get over the walls.

Micheal Fagan, 1982

• The most egregious breach of Royal security was surely the case of Michael Fagan in 1982. He managed to scale the walls of the Palace on the morning of July 7, climb a drainpipe and stroll the palace before making his way into the Queen's room, where he found her in her nighty and tucked up in bed on her lonesome.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michael-fagan-her-nightie-was-one-of-those-liberty-prints-down-to-her-knees-7179547.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Guard
http://findusfirst.media/listing/haines-security/