An attempt at sexual violence which she successfully resisted when she was just sixteen and traveling alone on the train. With this story, made on the BBC, during the very popular morning programme Todaythe Queen Camilla it broke, at the same time, two important unwritten taboos. The one who says that women must maintain maximum confidentiality on this topic, even going so far as not to report the attacker, and the one who says that royals must not tell their subjects the details of their private lives and the details of their state of health.
A family decimated by the violence of a man left by his girlfriend
The wife of King Charles III revealed to her subjects a very painful episode for her to support her family John Huntfamous horse racing commentator, decimated by the violence of Kyle Clifford, ex-boyfriend of one of Hunt’s daughters, Louise. The man, who had not accepted that he had been left by the girl, at the end of last June, a few weeks later had attacked her family with incredible violence and cruelty, stabbing Hunt’s wife Carole, and then raping and killing his ex-girlfriend Louise and also exterminating her older sister Hannah.
John Hunt and his only surviving daughter, Amy, met Queen Camilla at Clarence House, his London residence, where the BBC programme, directed by former Prime Minister Theresa May, was recorded.
«I had forgotten what had happened to me years ago but the courage of John and Amy Hunt who continuously speak in public about the violence of which they were victims to raise public awareness on the subject made me remember the attempted violence that I myself suffered», explained Queen Camilla, «I was on the train traveling to London where my mother was waiting for me and a boy tried to rape me. I fought and managed to push him away but the experience left me shocked and angry. When I got off the train my mother asked me: “Why is your hair all messed up and a button is missing from your coat?”. “I was attacked,” I replied to him.”
The importance of talking about trauma
During the BBC programme, Queen Camilla recalled the importance of recounting traumatic experiences as a way to overcome them and agreed with John Hunt and her daughter Amy that men must be taught, from a very young age, to respect women. Social media, they said, often presents a violent and misogynistic male model that has a negative influence on new generations.
Queen Camilla has been working with victims of domestic violence for years, collaborating with various charities that deal with this problem such as “Safe Lives” and “Refuge”. In Great Britain, as in Italy, the issue of violence against women is very topical.
Among the most famous cases, which have increased public awareness on this topic, is that of Sarah Everard, a thirty-year-old who was raped and killed four years ago by policeman Wayne Couzens. The ensuing investigation demonstrated how domestic violence is widespread, even in the families of policemen, who tend to justify and cover up colleagues who commit this type of crime.
The many taboos broken by the royal family
The British royal family has often broken taboos and conventions by introducing a more modern approach to very important topics such as health. King Charles has said he has cancer, although he did not specify what type, explaining to the subjects the importance of an early diagnosis and thus breaking with the convention that imposes confidentiality on their health conditions on members of the monarchy.
For centuries, absolute secrecy was maintained on this subject, especially when it came to cancer, to maintain an idea of the invincibility of royalty. The lung cancer that ultimately killed Carlo’s grandfather, King George VI, it has always been hidden as well as that of his wife, the Queen Mother, the mother of Elizabeth IIstruck by colon cancer in 1966 and breast cancer in 1984. Princess Diana was the first to talk about her mental problems and changed the perception of AIDS, in the late 1980s, touching HIV patients without gloves for the first time.
