Twelve men have been arrested in a major counter-terrorist operation across the country which had to be urgently brought forward after a catastrophic blunder by Britain's most senior anti-terror policeman, Bob Quick.
By Gordon Rayner, Richard Edwards and Duncan Gardham
Last Updated: 10:36PM BST 08 Apr 2009
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was photographed entering Downing Street carrying a briefing note headed SECRET, on which details of an undercover operation against a suspected Al-Qaeda cell could clearly be seen.
The document set out the strategy for for the operation, an investigation into a suspected cell based in the north west of England and allegedly plotting an attack in the UK, including details of suspects and how the police intended to arrest them.
The realisation by Mr Quick that he had held the document in open view as he was filmed going into a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee prompted alarm in Scotland Yard, which ordered the immediate arrest of the suspects.
As a direct result of Mr Quick’s lapse, 12 men were arrested in Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe, Lancashire, ranging in age from a teenager to a man aged 41. One man was a UK-born British national, the rest were Pakistanis staying on student visas.
A total of eight addresses were searched. Two men were arrested on Galsworthy Avenue, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, two were held at an internet cafe on Cheetham Hill Road, three were held in Cedar Grove, Liverpool, one at Liverpool John Moores University, one on Earle Road, Liverpool, two at a Homebase store in Clitheroe and one when a white van was stopped on the M602 between Liverpool and Manchester.
The raids were led by the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit but supported by Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and Lancashire Constabulary.
Police said the arrests were part of an “ongoing investigation”.
But officers would not discuss the nature of the investigation or whether it centred on an imminent plot or terror threat.
Mr Quick apologised for what amounts to one of the most serious imaginable breaches of security by a senior officer.
But it seems he will inevitably face questions over his future, as he is already a highly controversial figure having given the order to arrest the Conservative MP Damian Green and send 20 anti-terrorist officers search his parliamentary office.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Assistant Commissioner Quick accepts he made a mistake on leaving a sensitive document on open view and deeply regrets it.
"He has apologised to the Commissioner and colleagues."
Mr Quick, who is in overall charge of the country's anti-terrorism strategy, had gone to Downing Street to brief the Home Secretary on the latest developments in what had until now been a top secret operation.
He appeared to little attempt to conceal the briefing note, which showed details of the locations and manner of the intended arrests by "dynamic entry - firearms" but also showed where the suspects would be held following their arrest and the names of the six senior officers in charge of the operation.
Ironically, the document also included a note on the "media strategy" which would be employed once the suspects had been rounded up.
But instead the Home Office was forced to alert the D-Notice Committee, the body which imposes gagging orders on newspapers in matters of national security.
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