Protesters take over tank at the arms fair

TWO protesters stand on top of a tank and unfurl a banner in an amazing breach of security at the London arms fair.

They were among seven demonstrators who obtained official passes and walked freely round the exhibits at the Docklands Excel centre for four hours.

Despite a security operation costing an estimated 1 million, no one challenged them after they passed through metal detectors at the entrance.

The incident came as Britain was put on high terrorist alert on the eve of today's second anniversary of the September 11 outrage in the US.

Today one of the protesters told the Standard it had been easy to gain entry to the fair.

Sophie Paton said: "We just walked in. We queued up and waited the same as everybody else. We went in totally as ourselves. We weren't undercover.

"They had gate security just like you would find in an airport - Xrays, metal detectors and they were searching people down. We didn't take anything in apart from our camera but they were allowed."

Miss Paton, from south London, refused to say how or when they obtained their passes. She said the seven eventually identified themselves by climbing aboard the tank and unfurling their banner.

But she added it took 20 minutes for security to arrive and eject them - despite the presence of up to 3,000 police officers in the area, including Ministry of Defence police who usually patrol topsecret military installations.

Miss Paton said when security officials did arrive, they stood by the tank. "One of them asked me to come down and I said 'No' - we wanted to stand our ground as long as possible. I saw one of them come up and we offered peaceful resistance by going floppy so they would have to carry us out."

Two demonstrators climbed into an armoured personnel carrier before all seven were dragged off the vehicles. They were escorted to a police station and later released without charge.

The protesters said they were part of an Oxford-based organisation called The Affinity Group, but would not elaborate on its size or who ran it. The banner they unfurled was aimed at the organisers of the arms fair, Defence Systems Equipment International and read: "Stop DSEI. Stop death".

Miss Paton added: "Lots of people came towards us because we were peaceful protesters. We were smiling. No one was threatened by us."

A spokesman for the MoD police, said an in-depth review of security be held. "The group got into the exhibition using legitimate passes and showed their drivers' licenses and passports to confirm their identities," he said.

"They would have had criminal record checks done, in light of September 11, but it might not have emerged that they were protesters. When they were challenged-they admitted to it straight away. On the face of it, there was no criminality involved."

He said the review would include representatives from the MoD police, the Metropolitan police and Spearhead, the firm responsible for security at the arms fair.

A total of 114 protesters outside the arms fair have so far been arrested for offences including breach of the peace, highway obstruction and carrying an illegal weapon.

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