Queen Camilla told Boris Johnson how she "fought off" an attempted groper when she was a teenager, a bombshell new book has claimed.
As a teenager, Camilla Shand was on the train to London's Paddington station when a man tried to grope her, according to a new extract from author Valentine Low.
In Low's book, Power and the Palace, Boris Johnson's ex-communications director Guto Harri made the claim.
Mr Harri said the Queen - Duchess of Cornwall at the time - revealed her ordeal to Mr Johnson in 2008 when he was Mayor of London.
In an extract of the new book, published in The Times, the future Queen told Mr Johnson she hit the man with the heel of her shoe.
The extract reads: "She was on a train going to Paddington, she was about 16, 17, and some guy was moving his hand further and further.
At this point, Mr Johnson is said to have asked her what happened next. Mr Harri said: "She replied: 'I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel.'
"She was self-possessed enough when they arrived at Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, 'That man just attacked me,' and he was arrested."
Queen Camilla fought off an assaulter when she was a teenager, according to the new book
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Sources close to Queen Camilla said that while she has never sought to make her own experience public, she is pragmatic it has now been reported publicly.
One insider told the Mail: "If reading about her own experience helps other women, then in the circumstances she would consider that a positive outcome
"Her experience, alas, was as familiar to many women then as it is, sadly, today. And clearly, totally unacceptable.
"But she has never wanted to equate what she went through as a young woman with the stories that so many victims and survivors have had the courage to share with her over her past decade of campaigning on the issue."
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The then-Duchess of Cornwall made the comment to the then-Mayor of London, Boris Johnson
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Queen Camilla had previously vowed to try and eradicate domestic violence amid her ongoing health problems. For the last decade, she has been working with organisations to break the taboo around the issue and support survivors.
The Queen is also closely associated with several groups in the UK, including Safe Lives and WOW!, which campaign on the issue.
In 2021, she delivered a speech about the stigma and shame that survivors often face, saying: "Rapists are not born, they are constructed.
"And it takes an entire community, male and female, to dismantle the lies, words and actions that foster a culture in which sexual assault is seen as normal, and in which it shames the victim."
Mr Johnson's ex-comms chief Guto Harri made the claim in the new book
| PADuring her address, The Queen cited a survey which found that 86 per cent of young women in the UK had been sexually harassed in a public place, and that 96 per cent of those did not report the incidents.
She added: “It is, as almost all women know, a deeply disturbing experience to be sexually harassed.
"Yet somehow, a culture of silence has grown up, in which these women conceal their experiences of such offences.
"Why? There are, of course, many explanations. But there is one significant reason on which we are focusing today. Shame."
Last year, she met with former Miss England candidate Rehema Muthamia at Buckingham Palace, one of several domestic violence survivors who share their real-life experiences in the programme.
The Queen praised Ms Muthamia, and other survivors for speaking up about their experiences:
She said: "I think through getting some of these wonderfully brave survivors to actually get up and talk about it has made people sit up and listen.
"There are a lot of feisty women out there who've been through it, come out the other end and are now telling others how to do it. And that's what we want."