The revelation that Queen Camilla was sexually harassed when she was a schoolgirl includes the book “Power and the Palace” in which her reaction to being heeled in the “groin” is described.

According to the controversial extract from the book published in the Sunday Times, it was the Queen herself who revealed to Boris Johnson – when he was Mayor of London – what happened.

In that meeting, which took place in 2008, Boris Johnson had “gutturally” expressed his admiration for Queen Camilla, according to the book’s author, Valentine Lowe. “But the serious discussion they had was about the fact that she had been the victim of an attempted sexual assault when she was a schoolgirl.”

“She was on a train going to Paddington – she was about 16, 17 – and a man was putting his hand further and further away…” the book says, with Boris Johnson, according to his former communications director Guto Harry, relaying that the then-mayor of London wanted to know Queen Camilla’s reaction.

“I did what my mother had taught me. I took off my shoe and hit him in the groin with the heel,” she reportedly replied.

According to the same source, Queen Camilla “was calm enough when they arrived in Paddington to get off the train, find a man in uniform and say ‘that man just attacked me’, resulting in his arrest.”