Heathrow security blunder

A suspected suicide bomber on a terrorist wanted list walked through Heathrow Airport after a series of security errors.

The woman slipped into Britain despite being flagged as a terror threat by the security services.

Nigerian Yetunde Olaitan flew into Heathrow on a direct flight from Lagos but should have been stopped at passport control.

She had been granted a temporary visa in Nigeria but a security services inquiry identified her as a possible suicide bomber.

Her name was placed on a "warnings index" with orders that she be detained and handed over to Special Branch the moment she tried to enter the country.

In fact, Olaitan flew in under her own name and walked through passport control unchallenged.

The extraordinary blunder emerged when Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad received information that she had entered Britain and launched an urgent hunt for her.

After tracking her down and questioning her, detectives found that the original intelligence was flawed and that she was not actually a threat.

The Home Office launched a top-level inquiry into how someone identified as a terror risk could pass through checks unchallenged. Today officials said immediate action was taken to ensure such an incident could not happen again.

The incident, in February last year, came only months after the Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time, Sir

John Stevens, warned that an attack by s u i c i d e bombers on a target in London was almost inevitable. The i n t e r n a l i n q u i r y , orde red by Tom Dowdall, the head of border control airport operations, revealed a series of glaring loopholes.

Investigators were unable to identify Olaitan on CCTV footage as she passed through immigration and customs controls because the quality of the Special Branch cameras in the arrivals hall was too poor and could not identify faces.

The inquiry also found the CCTV cameras only covered a limited number of arrival desks; some were obscured by a pillar.

Video footage obtained by the cameras was only kept for one month, while records were so vague that investigators could not establish which off icer had interviewed the woman before allowing her entry.

The inspector who led the investigation recommended the introduction of "robust measures".

The inquiry report adds that Olaitan was later listed to be deported but had absconded and was now still believed to be in Britain.