A former soldier has revealed Prince Harry accidentally triggered a panic alarm at St James’s Palace after a drunken night out.
The Duke of Sussex reportedly stumbled into a sentry box when he returned from a night out, banging into the emergency response button.
Three armed soldiers from the Guards Division dashed out to find Harry, who was 27 at the time, on the floor in a “mess”.
Two armed police officers also attended the scene and helped carry the young prince back to his apartment.
A former soldier, who served in the Guards Division and was part of the Quick Response Force that found Harry, revealed how the Prince was “blind drunk”.
He recalled, “He was a mess, he was on the floor drooling on himself.”
“When we tried to get him up he was uncooperative and abusive.”
The ex-soldier, who did not want to be named, said, “It was around midnight. An alarm went off in the guard room, but we’d never heard it before.”
“One of the senior lads said it was one of the sentry boxes.”
“Within a couple of minutes three of us who were in the QRF were out the door. There were two Met Police guys there as well.”
“But instead of an intruder or terrorist, we found Prince Harry.”
“He was slurring his words, not making any sense.”
“When we tried to pick him up he started yelling, ‘Get off me, I don’t need any help’.”
“He was pushing us off and being very abusive.”
The source said they took him inside and up to his apartment – which was in a “right state”.
He said, “It was like student digs, it was sh*t.”
“The double bed was unmade, there were clothes and socks over the floor, cans of lager and dirty coffee cups lying around and packs of cigs.”
He said the team carried Harry to his bed where the royal “passed out” and was left to sleep it off.
He said, “We all had a good laugh and a joke about it.”
The ex-soldier, an injured veteran with more than a decade’s service, came forward about the incident after becoming enraged by claims Harry made in his memoir Spare.
He said the Prince had a reputation among military circles for being a “social hand grenade” who would often make trouble with his drunken antics.
Image credits: Getty Images
