UK police probe royal wedding security scare
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-07 09:33

British police ordered an inquiry Thursday into how a journalist drove a fake "bomb" into the heart of the royal castle where heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles will marry this weekend.

An undercover reporter said he tricked police into letting him take a van carrying a brown box marked "bomb" close to Queen Elizabeth's apartments at Windsor Castle, 20 miles west of London.

Mounted police pass Windsor Castle. Police said they will investigate a second security breach at Windsor Castle after a 'fake bomb' was apparently driven through the grounds just 72 hours before Prince Charles was due to hold a wedding reception at the estate west of London. [AFP]

"This apparent breach of security at Windsor Castle in the run-up to the royal wedding properly raises serious concern," a police spokeswoman said in a statement.

"It is only right that the facts are established before any action is taken against any police personnel who may be culpable."

London police chief Ian Blair, who said in February that the wedding was a potential terrorist target, has ordered an "immediate inquiry," the statement added.

The queen's eldest son Prince Charles will marry his long-term lover Camilla Parker Bowles at a civil ceremony in the small town of Windsor Saturday.

'ABSURDLY EASY'

The Sun newspaper said their reporter posed as a delivery driver to convince police to let him and a photographer past a barrier at the 900-year-old castle's King Henry VIII gate.

Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and his wife-to-be, Camilla Parker Bowles are photographed in the garden of Clarence House, London, in this Feb. 21, 2005 file photo. It's hardly been the stuff of fairy tales, but the messy, decades-long romance of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles is founded on something more solid than glamour or royal pomp. [AP/file]

"It was all absurdly easy," reporter Alex Peake wrote in the newspaper's Thursday edition. "It took just a hired van, two pairs of workmen's overalls and a bogus delivery note."

Wednesday's incident was the latest in a series of royal security breaches.

Sunday, two tourists climbed a perimeter fence at the castle to reach an area near the queen's rooms.

Charles's wedding plans have been dogged by hitches since he announced in February he was to marry the woman blamed by many Britons for destroying his marriage to his first wife, the late Princess Diana.

The venue was switched following a mixup over marriage licenses and then had to be rescheduled from Friday to avoid a clash with the funeral of Pope John Paul. Some constitutional experts have even questioned the legality of the pair marrying in a civil ceremony.

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