Terrorists ‘could kill 100 MPs within 5 minutes’

SECURITY flaws mean terrorists could break into Parliament and slaughter 100 MPs in under five minutes, a secret police operation found.

The weaknesses were exposed in a nighttime test by police at the Palace of Westminster earlier this summer.

Officers posing as extremists used a boat to gain access from the river. They then stormed the House of Commons chamber in an exercise that could have caused mass fatalities if replicated in real life.

A spokesman for the Houses of Parliament authorities would not confirm or deny that the operation had taken place.

But The Sunday Telegraph said three separate

sources had given accounts of what had happened, with one saying it showed that MPs were ‘sitting ducks’.

The officers were said to have stormed into the Commons chamber within five minutes in a way that could have led to a ‘massacre’ if the House had been sitting.

A review of security is under way following March’s Westminster attack, when a police officer guarding the palace’s gates was killed. The newspaper said the need for a barrier in the river to stop boats approaching Parliament had been highlighted, as well as an armed guard to protect entrances from the Thames.

More than 15,000 security passes are to be re-issued after officials accepted the current system had loopholes, while the review also found attackers could simply jump over a stretch of 3ft-high fencing.

The Houses of Parliament said its security measures were under constant review.