Police figures show the number of potential stalkers have risen in the past three years compared to the same time period before, as well as those categorised as ‘high risk’
Almost 500 potential stalkers have been pinpointed in the last three years by the specialist protection officers who guard the Royal Family – with 35 of those posing the highest level of risk.
The number in this most serious category rose from 24 in the previous three years, according to the figures from the Metropolitan Police’s Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. The total number of potential stalkers went up to 480 from 433. They were pinpointed by the Met’s Royalty and Specialist Protection team, who protect the royals and their homes, as well as government ministers.
Dai Davies, a former head of the Met’s royal protection command, said: “Unfortunately there will always be deranged people who want to do harm to the Royal Family. The difficult job for the police is determining which of them have the means and determination to go through with any plan.
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“There are probably 50 to 100 people they are currently monitoring who they feel could pose a significant risk. Quite often these people will be mentally unwell and some will be quite unsophisticated. It’s not unknown that these people will be so obsessed they have written to the object of their fixation and revealed their own name and address.”
He added: “These [pinpointed risks] are only the ones that have been brought to the attention of the authorities. There may be many more lurking in the shadows. It is impossible for the police to be 100% confident of weeding out all the people who might want to harm the Royal Family.”
In 2023, crossbow-wielding Jaswant Singh Chail, then 21, was jailed for nine years after arriving at Windsor Castle at Christmas 2021 and telling police he was “here to kill the Queen”. Supermarket worker Chail, who said he was spurred on by his artificial intelligence chatbot “girlfriend”, was detained under the Mental Health Act.
Previously, the outgoing Assistant Commissioner at the Met, Neil Basu, revealed the Duchess of Sussex was subject to multiple “disgusting” threats against her life. He said they were deemed credible and would have left Meghan feeling “under threat all the time”.
There is potential for the royals to be targeted by a wide range of people including loners, Islamic terrorists and far-right maniacs, experts say. It is thought right-wing extremists pose the most risk at the moment and were stirred up by the arrival of Meghan into the Royal Family as well as some of the claims made by Prince Harry in his book Spare.
Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019 about his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have also brought unwelcome attention to the royals. The FTAC is staffed by police, mental health nurses and psychiatrists who are experts on stalkers, in a bid to establish if people pose a real danger to public figures.
Many of those it investigates for harassing, stalking and threatening public figures have serious mental health problems and have fallen through the care net. The FTAC uses what it knows about the person to generate a risk rating.
A woman triggered a major security alert in 2021 when she was found wandering around Prince Andrew’s home in Windsor claiming she had a lunch date with him. The intruder, who was later detained under the Mental Health Act, was waved into the grounds by bungling security guards who even paid her taxi fare.
The Princess of Wales has also had unwanted attention from conspiracy theorists during her cancer ordeal. Kate, 43, was criticised for not discussing her diagnosis sooner and was the subject of spurious claims about her absence from public duties.