A royal chauffeur was suspended Sunday after reportedly giving two undercover journalists a tour of Queen Elizabeth II's official cars in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, a spokeswoman said.
The News of the World said its reporters, posing as wealthy Middle Easteren businessmen, paid the chauffeur 1,000 pounds (1,135 euros, 1,600 dollars) to let them in, after making contact through his prostitute girlfriend. The queen was in residence at the time of the alleged security breach Friday, said the paper, which published photos of one of its reporters sitting in a royal Bentley, as well as video of the illicit car pool tour.
"We can confirm an individual has been suspended pending an investigation," said a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman after the alleged incident, which follows a number of similar security gaffes in recent years. London's Metropolitan Police also said they were worried by the report.
"We are naturally concerned about the issues raised by this story and are liaising with palace officials about their staff security arrangements," Scotland Yard said in a statement. The two journalists got into the palace grounds without being searched or checked, despite walking right past a uniformed police officer in a security booth, the newspaper reported.
As well as the Bentley, which is used for state occasions, the chauffeur also showed the reporters the queen's personal car - a 2005 V8 Daimler with a floor specially raised to suit the monarch, it reported. "She's got slightly short legs, so the floor has been raised to suit her. It's kind of built around her. It's tailor made for her," the paper quoted the chauffeur as saying.
"She only uses it because it's British and she got it at a discounted rate," he added, before also showing the undercover reporters Princess Anne's green Bentley. The royal driver, originally from Trinidad, also gave sensitive information including code names for two of the vehicules, pointed out security weaknesses in the cars, and revealed the queen's private travel plans for the weekend. The tour was arranged after the newspaper contacted the chauffeur's 21-year-old girlfriend, described as a 200-pounds-an-hour Lithuanian prostitute, and then pretended they were interested in seeing the royal cars. The chauffeur did not know that his girlfriend worked as a prostitute, it added, quoting her as saying: "I'm sure he wouldn't be happy to know it but he can't really help me financially, so... "
The incident would not be the first time security at Buckingham Palace and other royal palaces has been violated in recent years. In 2003, a journalist from the Daily Mirror newspaper got a job as a footman at Buckingham Palace - the monarch's London residence - with a false reference.
This allowed him access to the queen's breakfast table and the bedroom where then US president George W. Bush and his wife were due to stay on an imminent state visit. At Windsor Palace - the queen's favourite home, just west of London - two journalists from the Sun newspaper claimed to have smuggled a fake bomb past security days before the wedding of Prince Charles and wife Camilla in the town in 2004. And in 2003, Aaron Barschak, a comedian dressed as Osama Bin Laden, gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor.
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