• The incident occurred on the train
• Camilla was forced to defend herself

Queen Camilla spoke publicly for the first time about an assault she endured from a stranger while riding the train as a teenager, affirming that she had to defend herself and fight back against the attacker.

She told a British radio program: "When I was a teenager, I was attacked on a train… I had kind of forgotten about it, but I remember feeling very angry at the time."

She added: "It was someone I didn’t know, I was reading my book, and suddenly this man attacked me, and I fought back and defended myself."

The Queen explained how her mother noticed after leaving the train that her hair was standing on end and some buttons on her coat were missing, indicating the physical nature of the assault.

The identity of the attacker is still unknown, but she noted that he was "probably not much older than me," although she initially thought he was an elderly man.

She confirmed that the memory of the attack had "lurked in the back of her mind for a very long time."

Queen Camilla’s disclosure came during a radio discussion on violence against women, joined by commentator John Hunt, who lost his wife and two daughters at the hands of a former partner of one of his daughters, while his surviving daughter, Amy, also joined the discussion.

Details of the incident were previously partially published in the book Power and the Palace by Valentine Low, who relayed Guto Harri’s account of how Camilla defended herself.