A man sparked a security scare after walking into the country’s most secure police station where top terrorists are held for questioning.
Raj Parmar was “buzzed” through the entry doors to Paddington Green police station after asking for directions to the local magistrates’ court.
He then walked the corridors of the station for up to 10 minutes before wandering into a meeting of about a dozen officers.
When he asked for directions he was grabbed and threatened with arrest — but they had to let him go after he pointed out he had been let into the station by a uniformed police officer.
Mr Parmar, 26, who helps run a family business in West Molesey near Hampton Court, had been due to appear in court after being arrested for being drunk and incapable at Embankment Tube station last week. He said he called into the station on Tuesday to ask directions and believes the officer on duty thought he must be a plain clothes officer.
He said: “I was smartly dressed for the court appearance and when he pointed through some doors and buzzed me through I thought he was showing me into another waiting room. I walked around the station for a bit, past a few doors with Do Not Enter until I found a room full of police officers.
“Until then no one challenged me but when I asked for directions they asked who I was and who had let me in. One of them grabbed me but there was not much they could do when I said I had been let in. When you think how it is supposed to be high security, I thought the security was pretty lax.”
Paddington Green is a normal police station but members of the IRA,
al Qaeda suspects and the 21/7 London bombers have all been held in its specially built custody centre.
Scotland Yard has launched an internal inquiry but said Mr Parmar had not entered the station’s sensitive terrorist holding area.
The lapse is embarrassing for the Yard and came just a day after protester David Lawley Wakelin burst into the Leveson inquiry and accused Tony Blair of being a war criminal.
