50% chance of bomb at Olympics: whistleblower

A whistleblower involved in training staff for security firm G4S has said he believes there is a 50% chance someone could carry a bomb into one of the Olympic venues.

He also claimed in an interview with Sky News that, because of pressure to recruit staff, corners had been cut and some staff were not up to the job.

The whistleblower told Sky’s senior correspondent David Bowden he had seen a lot of unprofessionalism and a slack approach to security training.

He said: “They seem to have a zero-fail policy so if a potential security officer comes on a specific course, then if they don’t make that grade, they’re not sent home — they are then put in a lower role.

“One of those lower roles is being a security guard, which I feel isn’t the bottom of the security tree at all.”

The whistleblower said only a short time-span was given for people to achieve their training and that weapons being used in simulations and planted on students, including pretend improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and knives, were not being picked up by X-ray operators or during physical searches.

He told Sky News: “The training is completely insufficient and the people who are making these mistakes are still getting a tick in the box at the end of the day and told to wait for an email for your start date to start work.”

He said: “I think if you walked into one of the Olympic venues with a lethal capability on you, in my view, you have a 50% chance of getting through that screening procedure and getting into the venue.”

Earlier Britain’s interior minister had to answer questions in parliament after admitting she was putting thousands of extra troops on standby for Olympic security because a private contractor might not meet its commitments.

“Let me reiterate there is no question of Olympic security being compromised,” Home Secretary Theresa May said.

The security hitch is acutely embarrassing for the coalition, with the eyes of the world due to be trained on London for the Games, starting on Jul 27.

About 23,700 security guards were due to protect venue and 13,500 military personnel had already been earmarked to contribute to this.

But now the government has put an extra 3,500 soldiers on standby after G4S said it might not be able to supply the 10,400 security guards it had contracted to provide.