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Buckingham Palace trespasser pleads guilty Buckingham Palace trespasser pleads guilty
(about 1 hour later)
A convicted murderer scaled the perimeter wall of Buckingham Palace before “admiring” the gardens for 10 minutes, a court has heard. A man who scaled the perimeter wall of Buckingham Palace and roamed the gardens for nearly ten minutes when the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Andrew were in residence was a convicted murderer.
Dennis Hennessy, of Wembley, north-west London, set off the alarm and cut his right hand as he climbed over the top of the wall, which is up to 3 metres high. He then walked around for about 10 minutes, heading towards the palace, where the Queen was in residence with the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of York, before being arrested by armed police. Denis Hennessy, from Wembley, London, was 17 when he beat a homeless man to death with an iron bar in 1992. He was jailed for life at the Old Bailey the following year.
As he was detained, he repeatedly asked: “Is ma’am in?”, the prosecutor Tom Nicholson told westminster magistrates court. Now 41 and released on licence, a court heard Hennessy was able to climb over the three-metre boundary wall and come within 50 metres of the royal residence before he was stopped by armed guards.
During his police interview, Hennessy told officers he had “walked through the gardens admiring the view”. Hennessy, who had earlier drunk “four or five cans of cider”, cut his hand on the barbed wire as he scaled the wall. As he was detained, he repeatedly asked “Is ma’am in?” and claimed he had been “admiring the well-kept gardens”.
The 41-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of trespass on a protected site and one count of criminal damage. Hennessey, wearing a dark green pullover and light blue jeans, was jailed for four months on Friday at Westminster magistrates court after pleading guilty to trespassing. He was also given a concurrent two-month sentence after admitting criminal damage to the alarm wires as he clambered up a tree and over the wall.
The court heard he was on licence after being convicted of the murder of a homeless man in 1992. Prosecutor Tom Nicholson told the court: “On 18 May 2016 at about 8.37pm the defendant climbed over the perimeter wall into the gardens of Buckingham Palace. The wall is between eight and 10ft feet high topped by barbed wire and alarm wires.
More details soon … “When climbing over the wall he activated the alarm breaking the system by breaking the wires in question. He walked through the gardens to the house and was challenged by armed police.
“He was detained after about 10 minutes or so on the Buckingham Palace site.”
Armed police, search dogs, and a helicopter swept through the gardens on high alert after Hennessy tripped the alarm as he entered the grounds near Hyde Park Corner. The Metropolitan police said on Wednesday he was arrested seven minutes after the alarm was activated.
Hennessy was released from prison in 2002 on licence before the probation service stopped monitoring him in 2013. He also has a conviction for shoplifting in 2016.
Sikander Choudry, defending, said the unemployed stonemason had been drinking before the incident. “He had an appointment in the Jobcentre in Wembley where he lives. He attended it and after that appointment he went to have some drink. He had four or five cans of cider.”
Hennessy then went to meet a friend in central London, and on his way to Victoria he had another drink in a pub before deciding to climb the Palace wall, using a nearby tree for support, the court heard. He caused £2,000 worth of damage to the alarm system.
Choudry denied his client had any malicious intent towards the royal family.
Several intruders have breached security at the queen’s London residence over the years, including a naked paraglider who landed on the roof in 1994.
In 2013, two men were arrested on suspicion of burglary: one in the grounds and one inside an area of the palace open to the public during the day.
In 1982, Michael Fagan managed to climb up a drainpipe and sneaked into the Queen’s private chambers while she was still in bed. The monarch reputedly spent 10 minutes chatting with the intruder before calling for help when he asked for a cigarette.