Attempt on Queen’s life ‘played down’

Press, 14 May 1987, Page 2

Attempt on Queen’s life ‘played down’

An attempt by Christopher John Lewis to shoot the Queen in 1981 was not covered up, his mother said yesterday. In a statement issued through the Christchurch police, Mrs Louise Lewis said the news media were aware of the attempt at the time but the incident was “played down.” Mrs Lewis, upset at numerous telephone calls from the news media, gave through the police what she said were her “final words’” on the incident. Several calls had come from overseas newspapers. Her statement said:

“The incident happened six years ago, not yesterday. Chris was only 16. He was charged and sentenced for this and other charges and spent 3>/ 2 years in prison. “There was no cover-up of the incident. The news media were aware of it. I even received a phone

call from the London ‘Daily Mirror’. to give it the story, which I didn’t. “However, it ' was played down to protect the family and remove the glamour aspect which is neither helpful to Chris, us as a family, or the nation.”

Lewis had admitted trying to shoot the Queen during her visit to Dunedin in 1981.

The Queen’s former bodyguard was never told that Lewis tried to kill her.

“There was no question of a plot as far as we were concerned,” Commander Michael Trestrail told “The Press” London reporter on Tuesday evening.

He was commenting on a report in London’s “Star” newspaper that the New Zealand police had failed to inform the British authorities of the at-

tempt on the Queen’s life.

Commander Trestrail recalls the shooting incident as “bloody dangerous,” but only the subject of a “routine” report from the New Zealand police.

"At the time in Dunedin I was vaguely aware a shot could have been fired. I heard a noise and was told the local police were investigating,” he said.

. “Nothing more was heard about it until we got back to the United Kingdom. There was a report from the New Zealand police that a young man had been arrested and charged with breaking and entering regarding firearms and with firing a shot. I was told he fired into the ground because ' his field of fire was blocked.”

The New Zealand police report had been sent to Scotland Yard and the Queen’s former private secretary, Sir Philip Moore.

Neither he nor Scotland Yard had ever been told about a deliberate and carefully planned plot by Lewis to shoot the Queen during her walkabout in Dunedin, nor informed about sketch plans, allegedly detailing different fields of fire, that were later discovered at Lewis’s home.