The image of a stunned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor slumped back in a car after his arrest has been splashed over newspapers and websites worldwide.
And the Reuters photographer who took it, Liverpool-born Phil Noble, said capturing the moment was “more luck than judgement”.
When news broke on Thursday morning that the King’s brother had been detained by police, Noble drove six hours south from his Manchester home to Norfolk where the former prince resides.
He usually captures pictures for an array of stories and had been covering floods and football fixtures earlier this week.
But he described Thursday’s momentous event, where the first senior British royal in modern history had been arrested, as “a proper old school news day, a guy being arrested, who can we call, tracking him down”.
“Is it the best photo I’ve ever taken? No. Is it up there with most important? 100%.”
Some other members of the media were also waiting outside but not much was going on, Noble said.
After six hours of waiting in the cold and night falling, it seemed like the tip-off was wrong.
Noble packed up and started heading down the road towards a hotel for an overnight stay.
But minutes later, he got a call from his Reuters colleague Marissa Davison, who was still outside the station, that Andrew’s cars had arrived.
