LONDON: In 1981, Christopher John Lewis, a disturbed New Zealand teenageraimed his .22 rifle at the British Queen Elizabeth II during her tour ofthe country, lining up her jade outfit in his scope.
The bullet missed, but according to an investigation by reporter HamishMcNeilly for the website Stuff, the 17-year-old became obsessed with wipingout the royal family, as the government scrambled to conceal how close theself-styled terrorist had come to killing the head of state.
Two years after shooting at the Queen, the teenager, planning to murderPrince Charles, attempted to escape from a psychiatric ward. In 1995, NewZealand police sent him on a taxpayer-funded holiday during the Queen’sNovember tour – believing him to be safer snoozing on a beach than anywherewithin firing distance of the monarch. He killed himself in prison in 1997.
By the age of 17, Lewis had a history of armed robbery, arson and animaltorture. He idolised the Australian bandit Ned Kelly and American serialkiller Charles Manson.
On Wednesday 14 October 1981, Lewis pulled on gloves and loaded his rifleinside a deserted toilet cubicle in New Zealand’s oldest city, Dunedin,aiming his scope at the Queen’s motorcade five storeys below.
Later, police found clippings on the royal family in Lewis’s squalid flatas well as a detailed map of the Queen’s route that day, with the words“Operation = Ass QUEB” written on the paper.
The Queen had just stepped out of a Rolls-Royce to greet 3,500 wellwisherswhen a distinctive crack rang out across the grassy reserve.
According to former Dunedin Police Sergeant Tom Lewis (no relation to theshooter), police immediately attempted to disguise the seriousness of thethreat, telling the British press the noise was a council sign fallingover. Later, under further questioning from reporters, they said someonehad been letting off firecrackers nearby.
According to Tom Lewis, the then prime minister Robert Muldoon feared ifword got out about how close the teenager had come to killing the Queen,the Royals would never again visit New Zealand.
The 1981 annual police report reads: “The discharge of a firearm during thevisit of Her Majesty the Queen serves to remind us all of the potentialrisks to royalty, particularly during public walks.”
Police interviewed the teenager eight times, during which he claimed he hadbeen instructed to kill the Queen by an Englishman known to him as “theSnowman”, of whom Lewis was frightened.
The Snowman allegedly told Lewis about the pro-Nazi, rightwing NationalFront in England, and said Lewis could be part of similar groups that werepopping up in New Zealand.
Lewis later claimed to have been visited by high-ranking officials from thegovernment in Wellington during his 13-day interrogation and was told neverto discuss the incident.
“If I was ever to mention the events surrounding my interviews or theorganisation, or that I was in the building, or that I was shooting at it –that they would make sure I ‘suffered a fate worse than death’,” Lewiswrote in a draft autobiography found beside his body after he killedhimself. It was published posthumously.
Further evidence of Lewis’s obsession with the royal family had emerged in1983 when he attempted to overpower a guard at a psychiatric hospital wherehe was being detained in order to assassinate Prince Charles, who visitedthe country in April with the Princess of Wales and their young son,William.
Fourteen years after Lewis’s attempt on the Queen’s life, the monarchreturned to tour New Zealand in November 1995.
Lewis, then 31, was deemed a serious threat to her safety, so New Zealandpolice dispatched him to Great Barrier Island in the north of the country,with free accommodation, daily spending money and the use of a vehicle. Hewas not, however, under 24-hour surveillance.
“I started to feel like royalty,” Lewis wrote of his 10-day exile.
Tom Lewis, who worked on the 1981 case, said police were eager to keep thetroubled man out of the spotlight during the second tour and downplay howclose he had come to the Queen on her earlier visit.
“You will never get a true file on that: it was reactivated, regurgitated,bits pulled off it, other false bits put on it,” Lewis told Stuff, addingthat Christopher Lewis’s original statement to police was destroyed. “Theywere in damage control so many times.”
Murray Hanan, Lewis’s former lawyer, said police did not want to pressahead with a charge of treason – which in 1981 still carried the deathpenalty – and he believed they had received an order from “up-top,politically” to hush up the attempted murder.
“The fact an attempted assassination of the Queen had taken place in NewZealand … it was just too politically hot to handle,” said Hanan. “I thinkthe government took the view that he is a bit nutty and has had a hardupbringing, so it won’t be too harsh.”
When Lewis faced court, his potshot at the Queen was downgraded topossession of a firearm in a public place and discharging it. The attemptedassassination – an embarrassment to the police protection squad, and to thegovernment – was being quietly and conveniently forgotten.
Lewis killed himself in prison at the age of 33, while awaiting trial forthe murder of a young mother and the kidnapping of her child. Shortlybefore his death, Lewis told his partner about his infamous attempt toassassinate the Queen of England.
“Damn,” he told her, “damn … I missed.” – Agencies