“The road has been closed as a precaution while specialist officers examine the package.” Read More Related Articles Residents evacuatedīrighton Suspect package destroyed at Brighton station.At the time a spokesman said: “Police have cordoned off Station Street West in Foleshill as a precaution following reports that a suspicious item was found at the location. Hereford Suspect package destroyed outside a Co-op. Within hours of the London blasts, there were bomb scares across the countryĮdinburgh Controlled explosions on two suspect packages in Princes Street "I think we should get very impatient with people who leave packages and suitcases lying around." "Many of the various alerts in London at the moment are because people are calling us to report suspicious people or suspicious packages," said deputy chief constable Andy Trotter. The force has also had 22 malicious bomb threats. In London, there have been 150 calls to British Transport police about suspect packages since Thursday. The car park was evacuated but the alert was called off an hour later. Police were also called to Heathrow yesterday morning after a suspicious package was found in one of the airport's car parks just before 11am. The package is believed to have been luggage that had been left behind on a train.
Surrounding streets were closed and cordoned off as an army bomb disposal team from Chester carried out a controlled explosion.Īll train services into Piccadilly station were suspended and tram and bus services into the station disrupted. In Manchester, British Transport police evacuated Piccadilly station on Saturday afternoon after a suspicious package was found. "They even threw their bouquet into the crowd," she said. We didn't know where we were going or have anywhere to stay as we couldn't go back to our hotel."Īmong the confusion, Ms Atkinson said she saw a bride and groom having their first dance outside the police cordon. Bernadette Atkinson, 55, from West Yorkshire, said: "I was angry ended our evening. Emergency accommodation was provided at the Ladywood Arts Centre and at Aston University. During the shutdown, BBC staff were evacuated from their studios and hundreds of guests were forced to leave hotels. The city centre reopened at about 6am yesterday and there was an increased police presence on the streets. We have found no bombs but we have responded to what members of the public saw and thought was suspicious and which they quite responsibly drew to our attention." Alert members of the public saw things that gave them concern and they responded to it. Another team went to the Travelodge hotel on Broad Street to deal with a suspicious package which proved to be a box with wires and a switch.Īsked if the force had overreacted in the wake of the London attacks, Mr Scott-Lee said: "There was a significant threat. The packages were incidental to the threat we were responding to."īomb disposal teams used a mobile robot to carry out four controlled explosions on a double-decker bus parked close to the Square Peg pub in Corporation Street in the city centre. "I believe this threat was significant for me to authorise this evacuation. "I can tell you that, bearing in mind the current world climate, the information we received posed a real threat to the lives of people in the city centre," said Mr Scott-Lee. Mr Scott-Lee said officers had to react following calls from members of the public and said he and his team had been influenced by the bombings in London on Thursday. The police would have been quite wrong if they had ignored the threat which came to them." I think both the police acted entirely professionally and the people living in Birmingham acted entirely professionally. "That is why the police acted as they did. "There was a serious threat," Mr Clarke told the BBC.
Mr Scott-Lee was backed by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, who praised the response of both police and public. The Birmingham shutdown followed the closure of Manchester's main railway station after the discovery of a suspect package. There had been a "real and significant" threat to lives, he added. Paul Scott-Lee admitted the packages on a bus and at a hotel were neither bombs nor hoax explosive devices, but stressed information received by officers had been significant enough to warrant the evacuation.
0 kommentar(er)
