Armed police officers assigned to protect London Mayor Sadiq Khan reportedly left a bag containing multiple guns and ammunition outside his south London residence, where it was later discovered by a member of the public.
The discovery was made on Tuesday evening by the girlfriend of scaffolder Jordan Griffiths, who told The Sun newspaper that she found the bag by the kerbside.
Inside the unattended bag were an MP5 semi-automatic Heckler & Koch carbine, a Glock pistol, a Taser, and various rounds of ammunition.
Mr Griffiths expressed his "shock" upon realising the dangerous contents.
He told The Sun: “I could not believe my eyes and took some pictures as proof of what we had found.
“I called the police and told them what I had found and within a few minutes they turned up to collect the guns.
“When they arrived they were really shocked. They looked through the bag carefully and hurriedly took them away.
“I was told they had been left there by one of Sadiq Khan’s security officers, which made sense as he lives here.”
The Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards is reviewing what happened and five officers have been removed from frontline duties.
The force said in a statement: “At around 9.40pm, a member of the public called police after finding a bag containing Met-issued firearms and a Taser on a street in south London.
“Within seven minutes of the call to police, officers arrived at the scene and safely recovered the items.
“We are urgently reviewing the circumstances of this incident and recognise the concern it may cause.
“At this stage it is believed the bag was misplaced by on-duty officers a short time before the member of the public located it.
“We recognise the concern this may cause and an internal review was immediately launched into the circumstances.”
A spokesperson for Mayor of London Sir Sadiq said: “This is a very serious incident, which has been referred to the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards. The Met must now take all steps to ensure an incident like this never occurs again.”
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