If there is one man the Queen was lucky to have guarding her back during a royal security scare yesterday, it was this chap.
For rarely is there a target bigger than Her Majesty.
But larger-than-life David Morgan-Hewitt, managing director of one of the Royal Family’s favourite hotels, provided adequate cover as he escorted the Queen outside after a scruffy intruder ran inside.
The interloper, who witnesses said appeared drunk, sprinted through the front door of the Goring Hotel in London’s Belgravia at lunchtime.
Minutes later, he was wrestled outside by a man in a suit, thought to be a royal protection officer.
The Queen, 90, was inside having a private lunch with some of her most senior servants at the time.
Dressed in a hoodie, jeans and trainers, the man waved his hands in the air before running inside at about 1.30pm, a witness said.
After being escorted back out, he was patted down by the officer who took his details before letting him go. It is not known why he entered the building.
The intruder was spotted on the District Line near Earl’s Court before yesterday’s incident.
One witness described how he appeared to be drunk and was shouting: ‘I’m Irish, I’m hard as f***’.
‘He was crawling around on the tube picking up empty cans and sucking out what was left,’ the witness added.
‘He kept trying to give people high fives and was quite aggressive to some Asian men on the tube.’
The five-star hotel is a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace and was a favourite of the late Queen Mother.
Mr Morgan-Hewitt – who, according to the hotel’s website, is ‘as much of an institution as the hotel itself’ – has been with the Goring since 1990.
The hotel was also the location of choice for Kate Middleton for her final night as a single woman before her wedding to Prince William.
The Middleton party booked out all of the hotel’s 71 rooms for their family and friends and held their own reception there for those not invited to the Buckingham Palace bash.
