Resurfaced footage of King Charles’ ‘assassination try’ exhibits courageous similarities to Donald Trump – mirroring the president’s defiant response

When shots rang out at Donald Trump‘s Pennsylvania rally on July 13 last year, many in the crowd thought it was the sound of a car backfiring.

That was until the Republican politician was dragged to the ground by his Secret Service agents as they swarmed the stage to protect him.

As he defiantly got back to his feet with blood running down his face, the stunned viewers realised they had just watched his attempted assassination live on television. 

But of all the people watching, perhaps King Charles knew the best just how he felt at that moment – because three decades prior, the royal survived his own apparent assassination attempt.

Just like Trump, the Charles was also giving a speech, but he was at Tumbalong Park in Sydney thirty-one years ago today to celebrate Australia Day.

The then-Prince of Wales was shot at with blank rounds (although no one knew that at the time) from a starting pistol by 23-year-old student David Kang in 1994.

Charles, then 45, won plaudits for his response as he was filmed calmly adjusting his cufflinks as his bodyguards wrestled Kang to the ground.

Kang later said that he carried out the stunt to highlight the plight of Cambodian asylum seekers being held in detention camps in Australia. 

He was arrested before being found guilty of threatening unlawful violence and sentenced to 500 hours of community service.

Footage of the incident showed Charles reacting to the shots before Kang – dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans – marauded on to the stage as horrified school children and other attendees watched on.

The King’s bodyguard, Superintendent Colin Trimming, was seen shoulder charging his boss out of the way before rushing back to the stricken gunman to assess the threat.

He then returned to Charles to stand as a human shield in front of him. The then Metropolitan Police Commissioner hailed the bodyguard, saying: ‘I take comfort from the fact that he was the first person at the Prince’s side.’

Within minutes of the drama occurring, both Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana – who had by then been separated from her husband for more than a year – were informed.

Charles had been about to present prizes to schoolchildren in front of a crowd of 20,000, but it was soon overshadowed as images of the incident were beamed all over the world.

The Prince of Wales’s private secretary at the time, Commander Richard Aylard, witnessed the moment Kang launched his stunt.

He said: ‘I saw this character running very, very fast towards the stage at the speed of a 100 metre sprinter. I saw him fire.’

Afterwards, there was finger pointing over who was to blame for the security lapse in a similar fashion to what would happen following the attempt on Trump’s life decades later.

However, it was claimed that the Palace had asked that no police be placed between Charles and the public.

Terry Griffiths, the police minister for New South Wales at the time, said: ‘No one can take pride that an incident has occurred, but the level of security was agreed by all the agencies involved. His Royal Highness desired that level.’

But the discussion around the security failure was heightened in the immediate aftermath as the still active IRA had shown in decades past that they were prepared to kill members of the Royal Family.

In 1979 Lord Mountbatten who was a strong influence in the upbringing of Charles (his great-nephew), was killed by the terrorist organisation after it detonated a bomb under his fishing boat.

He and Charles were close, and fondly called each other ‘honorary grandfather’ and ‘honorary grandson’, according to Jonathan Dimbleby’s 1994 biography. 

The brutal killing caused the possibility of assassination to lurk in the back of every royal’s mind from that moment on.

Robert Jobson later wrote in his 2023 book Our King: Charles III: The Man and the Monarch Revealed: ‘Understandably, Charles was profoundly affected by the murder of his beloved mentor and great uncle, Lord Mountbatten.’  

Perhaps the assassination of his beloved mentor was the reason why Charles was able to remain so calm when shots were fired in his direction years later.

Jobson wrote: ‘In many ways, I believe his great-uncle’s death has contributed to Charles’s fatalistic attitude towards his own mortality.’

According to royal authors, Charles remained very calm throughout the apparent attempt on his life.  

Sally Bedell Smith wrote in her book Prince Charles: In the Shadow of the Throne: ‘Charles remained nonchalant amid the scuffle. “I’m all right” he said. “It was a bit silly to start shooting.” 

‘The media and the public were impressed by Charles’s preternatural calm in what appeared to be an assassination attempt.’ 

Jobson later wrote about how Charles even joked about the incident. Turning to an aide, he recounted an anecdote about how he was charged by a bull elephant while in Kenya. He said the African encounter was far more frightening. 

Following the attack, the Australian prime minister Paul Keating said he was ’embarrassed’ about the incident, but dismissed the idea that it was an assassination attempt. 

He said in a television interview at the time: ‘His control in the circumstances, I think, reflected the professional attitude that he has… the important thing to record about this is that it was not an assassination attempt. It was a political demonstration.

‘Prince Charles is a good friend of this country and he should be treated with the respect and dignity that a good friend deserves.’

It later emerged that Kang was apparently protesting about the treatment of the Cambodian boat people, a group of more than 100 forced to remain off the coast of Sydney while their refugee claims were dragged out, according to The Mirror.

The gunman was later hauled in front of magistrates in Sydney. 

Kang had reportedly written around 500 letters about the boat people to newspapers, church-goers and world leaders, including President Clinton.

He had even sent one to Prince Charles, with the royal’s private secretary issuing a reply.

During the court case at Sydney’s central magistrate’s court, the state prosecutor said: ‘In one letter, he indicated it was a cause he was prepared to die.’

But Kang said he was trying to highlight the plight of the Cambodian boat people and suffered from depression.

Describing the incident a year after, he said he thought the prince’s bodyguards would have shot him.

He said: ‘I didn’t trip on the stage, I deliberately fell, because I didn’t have any intention to hurt anyone.

‘I could hardly believe that I’d reached the stage, and when I slid across, nothing had happened to me, nobody had touched me.’

Up until the point of the assassination stunt, the event had been ‘rather boring’ according to one journalist who was there on the day. 

But the stunt had the unintended consequence of boosting Charles’s reputation amongst his Australian subjects, who had been considering ditching the monarchy and implementing a republic. 

They eventually decided to keep the Windsors in a 1999 referendum by a 55 per cent margin.

Sally Bedell Smith wrote in 2017: ‘The overall effect of the trip was positive for Charles as well as monarchists in his host country. 

‘The Australian independence debate subsided, and the prince’s reputation “soared” for being “supremely cool under fire”.’

But as for Kang, although his actions left a profound impact on his life, he managed to turn it around and become a barrister specialising in criminal law.

He was deemed a ‘fit and proper person’ by the New South Wales Bar Association and admitted as a barrister in 2004, according to ABC.

New South Wales Bar Association president Ian Harrison SC said at the time Kang had served his time and was found by the barristers’ admitting authorities to be a fit and proper person.

He said everyone is entitled to move on and there are thousands of people in the community who have committed crimes and are now getting on with their lives.

Kang was tracked down by an Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 who interviewed him.

He said: ‘Certainly ten years ago was a traumatic experience and . . . I don’t want to bring back those memories again. 

‘To think about it even now unsettles me a little bit. From my personal point of view, what happened back then was extremely traumatic and the effect it had on my family was deeply upsetting.’

Kang has listed his interests on his chambers’ website as tennis, football and swimming.

He is keen to put the events of 1994 behind him. ‘I just want to get on with my life and do the thing that I do and not have this type of exposure bringing it all back.’

As for Charles, the incident seemed to stay with him, even though it did not prevent him from visiting Australia many times since. 

Although he seemed calm and composed under gunfire, he was moved enough to write a personal letter to Trump following his attack decades later.

In it he reportedly wished a speedy recovery to all those injured in the attack and expressed his condolences to those it left bereaved.

No doubt the president took comfort in the words from a man who was brave in the same situation.