Andrew made the unusual request despite the danger and inconvenience (Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)
The former Prince Andrew requested to visit the scene of the 1980 Iranian embassy siege whilst Scotland Yard was in the midst of sensitive negotiations to free 26 hostages.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then a 20 year old trainee Royal Navy helicopter pilot, watched the six-day hostage crisis unfold live on television.
On the fifth day, Inspector Peter Prentice, a member of the Royal Protection Unit, reached out to the ‘Zulu control’ established to negotiate with the six heavily armed gunmen who had stormed the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate in London.
The siege was at its most critical negotiation phase as the captors had murdered one of the hostages and discarded his body outside on the embassy steps.
The tense hostage situation concluded when the SAS stormed the building, an event witnessed live on television by millions worldwide.
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According to accounts given to author Ben Macintyre for his book ‘The Siege’, Andrew expressed a desire to be “allowed to visit the scene”. Prentice explained that the former Prince, then second in line to the throne, “would like to come to lunch.”
John Dellow, the Scotland Yard commander overseeing the police operation, rejected the request “on the grounds of safety.” He passed it to then-Commissioner David McNee. However, Andrew stated he did not wish to see McNee.
He wanted to be “where the action was”, so he sent another message an hour after his initial request. “Prince Andrew had not given up,” Macintyre recounts in the book.
Fifth day of the Iranian Embassy Siege in London where six gunmen of an Iranian extremist group stormed the building, taking 26 hostages (Image: Getty Images)
“An hour after a request for a visit was denied, the persistent Prince sent another message. ‘It was suggested on his behalf that he could attend incognito.'”
The proposal was labelled as “absurd, an unnecessary distraction and pointless”, and Dellow dispatched a message which essentially amounted to “a two fingered salute to the Palace.”
It declared that “HRH would be informed as soon as the operation was complete so that he could attend if he so wished….one hour after its conclusion.”
Two hostages were killed before the SAS dramatically stormed the building, killing five gunmen (Image: ZAB)
The then-Prince arrived at 19:55 on Day Six of the siege following the SAS operation which resulted in five gunmen being killed.
The Iranian dissident group had murdered two of the hostages before the SAS stepped in. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, accompanied by her husband Denis, met with the SAS rescuers shortly after the 11-minute operation concluded.
The “air was thick with testosterone,” according to one Cabinet official present. “Most of them appeared to have slightly ginger hair and moustaches and bottles of beer in their hands,” he added.
