The 29 April Royal Wedding represents a huge security issue for the London police forces tasked with ensuring it passes off successfully.
Prince William and Kate Middleton's upcoming marriage has made headlines around the world and, in the UK and beyond, flags are being raised and streets are being decorated. Meanwhile, Metropolitan police officials are searching for hidden explosives and other devices to guarantee any possible trace of terrorism is wiped out before the big day.
Their work includes checking objects like the lampposts and traffic lights that line the wedding route, either or all of which could have been rigged. The exterior of Westminster Abbey, where William and Kate will marry, is being examined inch-by-inch, so too other famous parts of London, including the Mall and Horse Guards Parade.
The sheer scale of the wedding and the calibre of the invited guests presents terrorists with what's thought to be an extremely attractive target. That's why the security operation for the Royal Wedding needs to be so intense and in-depth and why, to bolster the pre-event checks, armed personnel will be deployed on the day, ready to engage with anybody that attempts an attack.
"Officers are trained to be vigilant and check areas where items may have been hidden", Inspector Ian Fairman, who's coordinating the search element of Royal Wedding security, explained, adding that his workforce would be "...checking vulnerable areas all along the route of the procession."
It's not just humans that are involved in the Royal Wedding Security- police sniffer dogs, too, have been deployed and they're capable of locating explosives within a 100 metre range.
The Metropolitan Police will also be surveying the scene from the air, with a helicopter capturing both still and moving footage. The helicopter will carry out initial checks before the Royal Wedding begins, to make sure that the security chain is free of broken links, and won't be directly overhead during the procession, as that could create unwanted noise.
History has shown that the Royal Family can be the victims of security lapses. Almost three decades ago, the Queen had an unexpected visitor to her bedroom, then-30 year old Michael Fagan. More recently, a campaigner rushed up to the Queen's carriage, but was stopped from making contact by a Queen's guard.
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