Ronnie Russell tackled gunman Ian Ball when he was trying to kidnap the Princess Royal on The Mall in 1974. He was later awarded a George Medal for helping to thwart the kidnap attempt.
The young royal was ‘scrupulously polite’ during the terrifying ordeal ‘Your daughter has been kidnapped. The following are conditions to be fulfilled for release.’ The curtains were shut tight as Ian Ball typed out the words on a ransom note using a rented typewriter. The letter demanded £3,000,000 and was intended for the eyes of Queen Elizabeth II.
As evidence was given, his stranger-than-fiction plan was revealed. Ball – a ‘loner’ who had worked in a funeral parlour – had been inspired by the novel ‘Day of the Jackal’ and wanted to follow in the footsteps of the book’s hero, the Jackal, a contracted assassin. Before renting a house in Hampshire, Ball had lived for four years in his Bayswater bedsit. ‘He was a very strange man,’ a downstairs neighbour later said.
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