A man broke into Buckingham Palace spending half hour eating cheddar cheese and wandering around.

Michael Fagan incident

A man broke into Buckingham Palace spending half hour eating cheddar cheese and wandering around. He tripped several alarms, but they were faulty. He viewed the royal portraits and rested on the throne for a while. He drank half a bottle of wine before becoming tired and leaving.

Break-ins: It was the 31-year-old's second attempt to break into Buckingham Palace that was successful. On his first attempt he scaled a drainpipe, briefly startling a housemaid who called security. But upon returning to the scene, Fagan had disappeared, leading security to believe the housemaid was mistaken. Fagan entered through an unlocked window on the roof and spent the next half hour eating cheddar cheese and crackers and wandering around. He tripped several alarms, but they were faulty. He viewed the royal portraits and rested on the throne for a while. He then entered the postroom, where Diana, Princess of Wales had hidden presents for her first son, William. Fagan drank half a bottle of white wine before becoming tired and leaving.

On the second attempt, an alarm sensor detected him. A member of the palace staff thought the alarm was faulty, and silenced it. En route to see the Queen, Fagan broke a glass ashtray, lacerating his hand.

The Queen woke when he disturbed a curtain, and initial reports had Fagan sitting on the edge of her bed talking to her for about ten minutes. But in a 2012 interview, he clarified that she in fact left the room immediately, seeking security. She phoned twice for police but none came. Fagan then asked for some cigarettes, which were brought by a maid. When the maid did not return to base for some time, footman Paul Whybrew appeared. The incident happened as the armed police officer outside the royal bedroom came off duty before his replacement arrived. He had been out walking the Queen's Corgis.

Arrest: Since it was then a civil wrong rather than a criminal offence, Michael Fagan was not charged for trespassing in the Queen's bedroom. He was charged with theft (of the half bottle of wine), but the charges were dropped when he was committed for psychiatric evaluation. He spent the next six months in a mental hospital before being released on 21 January 1983. It was not until 2007, when Buckingham Palace became a "designated site" for the purposes of section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, that what he did became criminal. Fagan's mother later said, "He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems.