Man jailed for breaking into Buckingham Palace

A homeless man who trespassed into the grounds of Buckingham Palace before damaging a glass display cabinet and falling asleep on it has been jailed.

Steven Lawlor, 44, entered the protected royal site on July 16 and broke poster boards and glass cabinets fixed to metal railings to use as bedding, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard, the BBC reported.

He stayed there for more than four hours before the security guards spotted him on CCTV cameras. Lawlor was jailed for 28 days for trespassing and 21 days for criminal damage, to be served concurrently.

The Queen was not in the palace at that time.

Lawlor appeared in court via video-link on Friday and pleaded guilty to criminal damage and trespassing on a protected site. He caused 210 pound of damage but no order of compensation was made because of his limited means, the report said.

The break-in prompted concerns over the security of the royal site. The Times newspaper reported that there were at leat two intruders at the palace last year.

A 22-year-old man was arrested trying to climb a security fence last August, while in December a man was caught attempting to scale a wall within the perimetre fence.

In 2016, a convicted murderer was jailed after climbing over the wall to get inside the palace.

--IANS

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