A man who was arrested during a commotion in the queue to see the Queen lying in state said he planned to ‘tell her to get out of her f***ing coffin because she’s not dead’, a court has heard.

Mark Hague, 52, was taken out of the line near Victoria Tower Gardens after another person queueing nearby overheard him and snitched on him. Organisers ‘made a decision that Mr Hague should not remain in the queue and he was escorted out’, Westminster Magistrates Court was told.

Obviously disrupting any queue is a serious crime in the UK, but disrupting the queue to see the Queen’s coffin? We all knew there’d be a few nutters trying to pull stunts like this over the last week but if this guy had any hope in hell of pulling this off he really should have kept his master plan to himself. Yeah OK they probably would’ve jumped on him and thrown in him jail as soon as the words left his mouth, but at least we’d have a viral moment out of it rather than just reading about a hypothetical in the Metro ffs.

Anyway, not only was Hague, of no fixed address, removed from the queue, he was also arrested after being abusive to police officers and members of the public as he was led away. Don’t be mad at them, buddy! You’re the one who gave the game away!

The 52-year-old pleaded guilty to using threatening or abusive words or behaviour and was fined £240, half of which was waived because of the time he had spent in custody. The other half was imposed because he was arrested while on a conditional discharge from custody for a previous assault on an emergency worker.

Giovanna Fiorentino, defending, said:

‘He is clearly someone who is suffering from mental health problems.’

I guess he’ll have to take his Queen Elizabeth conspiracy theories online for now. Here’s a ‘highlights’ package of yesterday’s funeral in case you missed it:

For insane images of the 9-hour traffic jam to leave Burning Man festival the other week, click HERE. I’d have jumped that queue.