Princess Anne’s attempted kidnapper has professed his innocence — saying he “was more scared” than the royal during the terrifying ordeal more than five decades ago.
Ian Ball, the gunman who shot police officers during a botched attempt to allegedly kidnap the Princess Royal in 1974, has spoken out six years after being released from a psychiatric facility.
Speaking about the bungled attempt, Ball claimed to the Daily Mail that he expected Anne to have been swapped with a body double — a claim he initially made after pleading guilty decades ago.
“I had good reason to believe the gunpowder had been taken out of the bullets and another girl had been substituted for Princess Anne,” he told the outlet.
Ball, 77, claimed that the incident — which he carried out at age 26 — was meant to be a “hoax” staged with the help of a “friend” on the police force.
“The whole idea of performing the hoax was to get the publicity so I could write my autobiography and I expected to get £10,000 in royalties,” he said. “I’m an innocent, sane man.”
During the March 1974 ordeal, Ball had chased the Rolls-Royce in which then-23-year-old Anne and her then-husband, Captain Mark Phillips, were traveling.
The couple were en route to Buckingham Palace following a charity event when they noticed a vehicle closely following their tail.
After successfully cornering the couple just minutes from the palace, Anne’s chauffeur, Alex Callender, was forced to bring the car to a grinding halt.
Ball then begun spraying bullets, injuring Callender and private detective, James Beaton, in the process. He also injured a police officer, and a journalist during his desperate attempt to kidnap the princess.
Seconds later, he hopped in the front seat of the vehicle and ordered Anne to get out.
After stepping out of the car, Ball was punched to the ground by a passerby, who just so happened to be retired heavyweight boxer, Ronnie Russell.
Following the frightening ordeal, the royal’s bodyguard and private detective was awarded the George Cross after being shot three times.
“[Anne] wasn’t bothered on the night. I didn’t scare her. I was more scared than she was,” Ball has sensationally claimed.
Years later, Ball sent Queen Elizabeth II a letter in which he fessed up to plans of kidnapping her only daughter and hold her ransom for almost $4 million.
While he was prosecuted for the attempted murder of Beaton and sentenced to life imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital, Ball was quietly released in 2019 for reasons unknown.
In 2023, Ball self-published an autobiographical novel on the ordeal, titled “To Kidnap a Princess.“
Anne, for her part, later said she was “furious at this man who was having a tug of war with me.”
While her late father, Prince Philip, quipped, “If the man had succeeded in abducting Anne, she would have given him a hell of a time in captivity.”
