Four people were referred for prosecution by police for flying drones during the period after the Queen’s death, according to a senior counter-terrorism officer. Most pilots identified were “hobbyists making innocent mistakes.”
However a minority of the pilots were reported “based on what they were trying to do,” deputy assistant commissioner of Counter Terror Police UK Matt Twist said. The number of reports from members of the public to police also spiked during Operation London Bridge.
This is the official name of the plan for the days following the Queen’s death, which reached the monthly average in the space of just 10 days. His comments followed a speech by Tom Tugendhat at the International Security Expo in central London.
Here, the new security minister praised police for allowing the public to mourn together safely. Detailing the way in which the operation unfolded, DAC Twist said around one in eight reports from the public to the police, had generated useful information.
He said: “Operation London Bridge was our largest ever deployment of hostile vehicle mitigation equipment. It was deployed for the full range of events across the country, then throughout the programme, redeployed for later events.
"This highly complex game of national Jenga involving vast quantities of concrete and steel consisted of 12 days' operational activity. Our counter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capability was fully utilised across the country, detecting a record 80 UAV flights requiring further investigation.
"This resulted in the seizure of drones. Of the number of pilots identified and spoken to, most were assessed as hobbyists making innocent mistakes.
"However four pilots were subsequently reported for prosecution based on what they were trying to do. The communications effort led to a significant increase in public reporting to Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) receiving nearly a month’s average of reports in 10 days.
"Approximately one in eight generated information useful to us.” It is not known whether a charging decision was made by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in relation to any of the four cases mentioned by DAC Twist.
Despite policing for the event having been planned for years, the officer said “on activation, it had to survive first contact.” DAC Twist defended the decision to use buses to transport dignitaries to the funeral service.
He said it was the “only way to get people to the church on time.” Protection was provided for more than 230 protected people through the programme and until international delegates departed the UK, he said.
He added that the threat of terrorism remained “very real” in Britain. “We’ve had a major and momentous month which I believe has demonstrated the very best of policing and our security partnerships,” he said.
“I am speaking to you from a very different Britain than the one at the start of the month. The death of Her Majesty The Queen has rightly been the nation’s focus and we pay tribute and celebrate her incredible life and legacy, and also welcome King Charles III.
“We also have a new Prime Minister and Cabinet. I have a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner who comes with a new vision and mandate to deliver significant reforms to improve the Met – specifically more trust, less crime and high standards.
“Reflecting beyond the last month and all of the changes we have seen, I am sorry to say that the threat from terrorism remains very real in the UK. It is also perhaps harder to spot and therefore harder to stop than it has been for a long time.”
Speaking at the same event on Tuesday, Mr Tugendhat said of the response from police and security services to the Queen’s funeral: "It’s easy to look at the face of it and say well, they closed down bits of London. What they actually did was ironically, they enabled people to mourn.
"They freed people to come together and they did what security really should do, which is enable free people to associate, to communicate, to share, to grieve and to be part of a community. That’s what security is about – it’s about making our society as open as it possibly can be, but with the protections necessary to make sure we don’t live in fear.”
