Attack on Prince Charles’ vehicle:
London Police Chief offers to quit
UK: Britain’s top policeman offered to quit after a mob of
students protesting against a rise in tuition fees attacked a car
carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla last week, a report said
Sunday.
Thursday’s attack took place during the most violent protests yet
against plans by Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition to triple
university fees.
The royal couple was unharmed but it was highly embarrassing for
police, particularly ahead of the wedding of Charles’ son Prince William
next year. Paul Stephenson, the head of London’s Metropolitan police,
called Charles the following morning to apologise personally for the
security lapse and offered to quit, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
“Sir Paul made it clear that if they [the palace] thought he should
resign, he would do so.
He did not expect the offer to be accepted but he felt he ought to
make it,” the paper quoted an informed source as saying.
An unnamed colleague added separately: “Sir Paul is an honourable man
and thought it right to consider his position.”
A spokesman for the Met police confirmed to the newspaper that
Stephenson had apologised personally to the heir to the throne but said
he would not discuss the content of their private conversations.
In the wake of the attack, Stephenson defended the police and said
the couple’s route through central London to a theatre had been
thoroughly surveyed minutes before the attack.
He also said armed royal protection officers had shown “very real
restraint” in not shooting at the protesters who swarmed the Rolls Royce
shouting ‘Off with their heads’.
London, Sunday, AFP |