CRIKEY

‘Father Cruise,’ Fake Priest, Talks His Way Into Windsor Barracks of Queen’s Guards and Stays the Night

The fake cleric drank at the bar of the officer’s mess of the Coldstream Guards before being offered a bed and breakfast.

He didn’t make it into the queen’s bedroom, but he did get a bed for the night. A fake priest talked his way into the Windsor barracks of an elite group of soldiers tasked with protecting the queen, and was allowed to stay the night and given dinner and breakfast before being rumbled. The Coldstream Guards, one of five regiments allowed to wear the famous bearskin hats and act as sentry for the monarch, even entertained the man, who claimed to be a friend of the regiment’s official pastor, at the bar of the officer’s mess while he regaled them with tall tales, according to a report in the Sun. The paper quoted a source saying: “The guy turned up at the gate, said his name was Father Cruise and claimed to be a friend of the battalion’s Padre, the Rev Matt Coles. He was invited in and offered something to eat. Within a couple of hours he was drinking with the officers in the bar. He was telling lots of tall stories and the lads were enjoying his banter. It was only later when he started talking about how he had worked as an ejector-seat test pilot and had some organs replaced that the chaps started to get suspicious.” The fake priest was allowed into Victoria Barracks, which is next to Windsor Castle despite not showing any identification. The queen was at Sandringham and was not in direct danger, however the timing of the lapse, which occurred last week, just a month before the platinum jubilee celebrations, is highly embarrassing for the army.