Queen Camilla’s radical honesty shows the good this monarchy can do

By talking openly about her assault on a train in the 1960s for the first time, the Queen will further encourage women and young girls to call out misogyny, says Emily Sheffield

Few of us when learning of the murder of BBC racing commentator’s John Hunt’s family in Hertfordshire in July 2024 could comprehend the horror of it. His wife, Carol, was brutally stabbed multiple times and two of his three daughters murdered with a cross bow in their own home.

The perpetrator – now serving life in jail – was Kyle Clifford, an ex-soldier and the ex-boyfriend of Hunt’s 25-year-old daughter Louise, who Clifford tied up and raped not far from the body of her dead mother, before turning the crossbow on her while she was still tied up. She had finished her relationship with him two weeks before. Clifford then murdered Louise’s sister Hannah, as she entered the house from their garden, where she had been, completely oblivious to the terror unfolding yards away in her home.

When such a cruel tragedy befalls a family, many soon turn from the horror of it. Too distressing, too awkward; how do we voice our continued sympathy? But not the Queen. In a New Year’s Eve interview on the Today programme Queen Camilla, in her characteristically empathetic, no-nonsense way, spoke openly to John and his daughter Amy about their on-going grief, shedding light on their campaign to combat domestic abuse and violence against women.

The Queen was speaking during a discussion on violence against women on BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme – guest edited by former prime minister, Baroness Theresa May. And she also talked publicly for the first time of her own attack at the hands of a young man on a train when she was just a teenager. She aptly describes the anger many of us feel when sexually assaulted.

She recalls getting off the train and “my mother looking at me and saying: Why is your hair standing on end and why is the button missing from your coat”; I had been attacked. I was so furious about it and… when the subject about domestic abuse came up, and suddenly you hear a story like John and Amy’s, it’s something that I feel very strongly about.”

The Queen is aware her story is nothing compared to the Hunt’s and Amy and John’s brave, clear response. But she also knows that opening up about her own experience given she is now the Queen of England, will further encourage women and young girls to call out misogyny, to see such behaviour as unacceptable, not have it shrugged off as somehow part and parcel of being a women, as it has so often been considered, with horrendous results. Take your pick – grooming gangs, the murder of Sarah Everard, continued misogyny in the Met police and yes, Epstein.

Amy acutely notes in response to her majesty, “Every woman has a story ….” It would have been easy for the Queen to have tackled a lighter subject, striking a cheerier note, end-of-a-challenging-year type message, especially given the dark cloud of Epstein and his long friendship with Andrew, hovering over the Royal family. The Queen’s honesty is in stark contrast to her brother-in-law. And her openness is part of a wider societal shift in calling out sex crimes.

She has also spent decades shouldering the attention her relationship with the King has endured, very rarely giving any insight int her private thoughts or life behind the glare. It is many ways a remarkable intervention (while not for a moment underestimating the fortitude of the remaining Hunt family).

She has rightly pushed aside old-fashioned royal protocol to help establish an authentic hard truth. Until this week, she had only described the incident in private to Boris Johnson, when he was London Mayor. (Queen Camilla is patron of the domestic abuse charity  SafeLives  and has worked alongside a number of other organisations, including Refuge.) Details emerged only this year in Valentine Low’s book, Power and the Palace. But the story had been told second hand by Guto Harri, Johnson’s former aide. It is right she has described her experience directly. Not left as a line in someone else’s book.

And she further underlined the gravity of the attack in the new details that she gave – the torn button of her coat, her hair standing on end, her mother’s shock… this was no mere hand on a knee. This was as she describes an outright attack in a public place. At the time, aged just 16 or 17, she reported the attack and had him arrested.

It may feel to many like a small gesture, but it is not. It tells every woman they need not be ashamed; they should not belittle these experiences. She is helping give survivors a voice. And as Amy adds, it is time the conversation moved away from women having to endlessly protect themselves to focusing on the perpetrators and how to stop them. Before it is too late.