Detectives were continuing today to question a 48-year-old man arrested following a siege in central London.

Police snipers and heavily armed officers put several blocks of central London’s shopping district into lockdown after a man allegedly armed with gas canisters entered an office building and threatened to blow himself up.

One of Britain’s busiest shopping streets was closed today as a man wearing gas canisters stormed into an office and threatened to blow himself up, it was reported.