Princess Anne’s attempted kidnapper has been released from Broadmoor and is attempting to clear his name. Ian Ball was 26 when he stalked Anne, who was then aged 23, before attempting to kidnap her as she travelled to Buckingham Palace with her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, after a charity event.
Ball blocked their chauffeur-driven car in The Mall with his Ford Escort, pulled out a handgun and shot and wounded two policemen and two civilians during the skirmishes. Planning to kidnap Anne for a £2million ransom, Ball tried to force the royal out of her car, to which she replied: “Not bloody likely”.
A passerby, who happened to be boxer Ronnie Russell, stopped the attempt in its tracks by whalloping Ball in the head.
Ball was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after pleading guilty to attempted kidnap and two attempted murders.
He has been released on probation and is said to be out to prove his innocence despite his Old Bailey guilty plea all those years ago.
Ball, now 77, told the Daily Mail he is “an innocent, sane man” because he had “good reason” to believe the gunpowder had been taken out of the bullets and another girl had been substituted for Anne.
The former Broadmoor inmate refused to apologise to the two men he shot and said Anne “wasn’t bothered” on the night of the attempted kidnap.
In an extraordinary claim, he said: “I didn’t scare her. I was more scared than she was.”
A relative of Ball’s, who asked the Mail not to be named, said he was “not very well” and the “obsession” with what happened had “overtaken him” again.
Since 2022, Ball has been selling his self-published book, To Kidnap a Princess, which is said to be an attempt to prove his innocence.
According to the Mail, Ball continued to use a pseudonym, Anthony Stewart, and still protests his innocence from his home at a hostel in Notting Hill, west London.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Restricted patients can be recalled back to hospital if their mental health deteriorates such that the risk they pose becomes unmanageable in the community.”