The stunt double took Her Majesty's place for the parachute jump. Photo / Getty Images
The stunt double took Her Majesty's place for the parachute jump. Photo / Getty Images
The Queen's skydiving stunt double at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics faces jail for attacking his girlfriend in a "nasty" case of domestic violence.
Gary Connery, 53, who leaped out of a plane dressed as the monarch in the famous Bond stunt, was convicted of causing grievousbodily harm without intent by throwing his partner down a flight of stairs, the Mail on Sunday reported.
Connery was sentenced to 18 months in prison at Oxford crown court.
Jurors who cleared him of GBH with intent heard how he smashed Tanya Brass' head on to a banister on October 24, 2020, before pushing her down the stairs.
Prosecutor Jonathan Stone described the assault as a "nasty allegation of domestic violence" at Reading Crown Court, adding that none of the character witnesses who spoke of him in "glowing terms" watched while he and Brass were "home alone, when he holds all the cards".
Connery claimed Brass had tripped while trying to hit him on the staircase at their home in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
He later admitted to the police that he had said "instant karma" when his victim, who took prescribed medication for bipolar personality disorder, landed at the bottom of the stairs.
Brass said that Connery took her phone when she tried to call an ambulance and told medics he had pushed her at the scene, the court heard last week.
The opening ceremony saw the Queen embark on a secret mission with James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, in a hilarious spoof which was beamed across the world 10 years ago on Wednesday.
Connery was dressed in a salmon dress similar to the one worn by the monarch during the event as he jumped from 800ft above the stadium, deploying his parachute at 500ft, with the real Queen entering the arena shortly afterwards.
Nicknamed Birdman of Henley after jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute and landing on a pile of cardboard boxes, he spent months training in secret for the jump, landing on a nearby bridge.
The ceremony saw the Queen formally open the Games at the Olympic stadium in east London, which was widely praised as a "masterpiece" and "a love letter to Britain".
An estimated worldwide television audience of 900 million, the most-viewed Olympic opening ceremony in both the UK and US, watched as the spoof film showed Daniel Craig as James Bond entering the front gate of Buckingham Palace in an iconic London black cab.
The jump was part of the sketch involving Her Majesty and Daniel Craig as James Bond.
The Queen, playing herself, acknowledged the famous fictional spy with the words, "Good evening, Mr Bond" as he escorted her out of the building and into a helicopter which gave viewers an aerial tour across London taking in the Palace of Westminster with an animated Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square, the London Eye, and St Paul's Cathedral before passing through Tower Bridge accompanied by the Dambusters March.
The film finished with 007 and the Queen apparently jumping from a real helicopter live above the stadium, accompanied by the James Bond Theme as she and her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, were introduced to the stadium audience.
