Yard ‘passing buck over Westminster attack’

THE Metropolitan Police has been accused of trying to “pass the buck” over claims that firearms officers failed to properly patrol the Palace of Westminster at the time of a “predictable” terrorist attack.

Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing Pc Keith Palmer to death at the Palace of Westminster on March 22 last year. Yesterday, Dominic Adamson, representing the officer’s widow, Michelle, said: “The Metropolitan Police has failed to identify the fact that its armed officers were not doing what they were supposed to do. And to this day it has failed to properly acknowledge the failings that it was responsible for in allowing that state of affairs to persist.”

Commander Adrian Usher, who leads policing at the Palace, replied: “I have said that I do not believe that to be the state of affairs.”