A royal chauffeur allowed two undercover journalists into Buckingham Palace for cash and let one of them sit in Queen Elizabeth II's Bentley car, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The News of the World tabloid said the security breach took place after two of its journalists, posing as wealthy businessmen from the Middle East, paid a chauffeur 1,000 pounds (S$2,300). The Bentley is used to drive the queen on state occasions. A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said: 'Any security matter is taken very seriously and we will look into these allegations. 'London's Metropolitan Police also said they were worried by the report, which featured in early editions of Sunday's News of the World. 'We are naturally concerned about the issues raised by this story and are liaising with palace officials about their staff security arrangements,' Scotland Yard said in a statement.
The apparent breach would not be the first time security at Buckingham Palace and other royal palaces has been violated in recent years. In 2003, a journalist from the Daily Mirror newspaper got a job as a footman at the queen's London residence with a false reference. This allowed him access to the queen's breakfast table and the bedroom where then US president George W. Bush and his wife were due to stay on an imminent state visit. At Windsor Palace - the queen's favourite home, just west of London - two journalists from the Sun newspaper claimed to have smuggled a fake bomb past security days before the wedding of Prince Charles and wife Camilla in the town in 2004. And in 2003, Aaron Barschak, a comedian dressed as Osama Bin Laden, gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor. It is not known whether Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip were at Buckingham Palace when the latest apparent breach took place.