One of the Foreign Secretary’s personal close protection officer has reportedly been “removed from operational duties” after allegedly leaving his firearm on a plane at Heathrow.
A cleaner is reported to have found the loaded Glock 19 pistol in its holster on a seat on the United Airlines flight after it landed in London on Friday.
The news follows after the Foreign Secretary had been in Washington DC to speak to US politicians about Brexit.
Scotland Yard said an internal investigation was currently taking place.
The cleaner raised the alarm after finding the weapon and police boarded the plane – before realising the gun belonged to one of Mr Raab’s close protection officers, the Sun reported.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We are aware of the incident on a flight into the UK on Friday 18 September and we are taking this matter extremely seriously.
“The officer involved has since been removed from operational duties whilst an internal investigation into the circumstances is taking place.”
Former Met chief superintendent Nick Aldworth told BBC news there were strict rules about the handling of firearms, but that human error does happen on occasions.
Mr Aldworth said: “This sort of thing is not common, but it does happen,
“It happens because human beings are in the system and human beings operate under an enormous amount of stress sometimes, particularly when they are managing armed operations or in the middle of an armed operation.
“This appears to be an unfortunate lapse in concentration for which the officer will pay a price in their career, in as much as they have been removed from operational duties, which is something they probably love doing, and sadly for them, will no longer be able to do.”
He insisted that the Met takes such matters “incredibly seriously”.
[give_form id=”1772″ show_title=”false” show_goal=”false” show_content=”below” display_style=”onpage”]
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
[sibwp_form id=4]
