LONDON — It was a wrong-place, wrong-time brush with danger: Protesting students — some chanting “Off with their heads!” — attacked Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, as they rode in their vintage Rolls-Royce to a charity event at a London theater.
How could the mob have gotten so close, so easily, to the future king? There was no quick answer Friday, amid scathing criticism from security experts and calls for officials to be fired.
The royal couple were unharmed but visibly shaken Thursday after the angry protesters, pumped up by earlier scuffles with police, surrounded their luxurious dark limo, smashing a rear window and splashing it with white paint.
Experts identified a host of failures surrounding the royal outing — and warned that procedures must be dramatically improved before Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey this spring.
“It wasn’t potentially dangerous; it was dangerous,” said security analyst Charles Shoebridge, calling the attack “one of the most serious security breaches of the past decade.”
He said the royal couple should have taken a different route to the theater, or waited until the streets were safe and clear of protesters, or simply sent their regrets and canceled.
“The best means of preventing a subject being attacked is to keep him out of harm’s way in the first place,” he said.
British police should have been talking with the royal protection squad to ensure the couple never came near the protests and most certainly not in a 1977 Rolls-Royce, said Alex Bomberg, a former aide to the royal family and now chief executive of a private security firm.
Security breaches
1974: Princess Anne escapes a kidnapping attempt
1981: A teenager shoots off six blank rounds at Queen Elizabeth II as she rides by on horseback.
1982: The queen wakes to find a strange man perched on her bed in Buckingham Palace but safely summons security.
1994: A student charges at Prince Charles while firing a starting pistol in Sydney, Australia.
2003: A comedian dressed as Osama bin Laden gate-crashes Prince William’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle.
