Report blasts royal security after glaring palace lapses

By KAMAL AHMED in London

The British Home Office is to order a complete shake-up of security at Buckingham Palace after a damning report revealed glaring lapses within the royal household.

The report by the head of the Security Commission, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, will say that employment checks for people who work close to the Queen and senior members of the royal family are flawed and that the security operation around members of the family is confused.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, ordered the inquiry into security at the palace after a journalist posing as a footman managed to infiltrate the Queen's home days before she was to welcome United States President George W. Bush on a state visit last year.

Ryan Parry set the breakfast table for the Queen and Prince Philip and was able to enter Bush's bedroom a few days before the President arrived. Parry, a reporter for the Daily Mirror, said after he had revealed himself as a journalist that if he had been a terrorist he would have been able to kill the Queen or blow up the President.

The story was the most embarrassing security lapse at the palace since Michael Fagan managed to enter the Queen's bedroom and chat with her for 20 minutes more than 20 years ago. Parry took intimate pictures of the Queen's home which made worldwide news.

Senior police sources said the palace's systems for vetting staff were full of "glaring inaccuracies" and that the palace ran a naive security operation.

One source said that members of the royal family were reluctant to allow guests at parties - often personal friends - to be vetted and that they had "no idea" they could become victims of journalistic stings.

"Some of the members of the family would object to fairly straightforward checks," the source said. "They live in a different world."

Last year "comedy terrorist" Aaron Barschak gate-crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle dressed as Osama bin Laden.

The Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles have been warned that they are under increased risk of terrorist attack since the invasion of Iraq and the Madrid bombings.

The Butler-Sloss report will demand that the palace and the Government appoint a new director of security who will be given responsibility for the safety of the royals.

At the moment security is confused because of a lack of co-ordination between the Home Office, the police, the security services and royal household officials.

Butler-Sloss will say that the simplest of checks on the internet would have revealed who Parry was. He gave his correct date of birth and his correct name.

The report will reveal that one of the palace's personnel officers made just one check on Parry's CV. The officer called a payphone at a pub in north Wales where he had been a barman.

When pub staff said they did not remember him the phone was handed to a regular who vouched for him.

Parry got the palace job and worked there undetected for two months.

Butler-Sloss will say all new employees should have their credit card details checked, CVs scrutinised and all references verified.

- OBSERVER