A man has been fined after pleading guilty to throwing an egg at King Charles III — which missed the monarch.
Harry May, a 21-year-old Luton man, threw the egg at the king on his visit to the Bedfordshire town on December 6 last year. It missed the monarch and broke on the ground nearby.
May was arrested at the scene and charged with a Section 5 public order offence of "of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress." He pled guilty at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London and was fined £100, plus £85 in costs.
He told police after his arrest that he threw the egg "because he believed the King visiting a town like Luton, which is a deprived and poor area, was in bad taste and he wanted to make a point of this," the prosecution told the court, but also claimed he had not tried to hit the king.
May's barrister Alex Benn insisted his client "cares deeply about his local community" and "deeply regrets" his actions.
"Whatever disagreement you have with somebody, the way to resolve it is not to throw projectiles at them," chief magistrate Paul Goldspring told May.
May was the second of the new king's subjects to attempt an 'egging' on him.
In November, a man threw four eggs at Charles and his wife, queen consort Camilla — all of which missed their mark — as he visited the historical northern city of York, shouting: "This country was built on the blood of slaves," while others replied with "God save the king!"
The UK is currently suffering a shortage of eggs due to outbreaks of avian flu at poultry farms around the country, which has required the sites to be quarantined and the birds destroyed.