A lorry driver today apologised to the Queen for drunkenly scaling a Windsor Castle fence and getting close to her private apartments.
Robert Pennefather, 32, was given a two-week jail term suspended for 12 months, fined £1,000 and banned from all UK pubs for a year, after he admitted trespassing.
Armed royal protection officers, alerted by an alarm, found him near the 8ft-high Cambridge Gate, about 65 feet from the Queen’s apartments, in November last year, Westminster magistrates heard. The Queen was not in residence at the time.
Pennefather, of Co Tipperary, Ireland, admitted next day he had been out drinking and couldn’t remember how he got into the castle grounds. Ian Brownhill, defending, said: “He apologises to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.”
