ARMED police guarding London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan left a bag of guns on the street outside his home in a shocking security blunder.
Five officers are believed to have forgotten the holdall, discovered on a kerbside at round 9.30pm on Tuesday.
That night time feral youths ran riot in Clapham, only a brief distance from the Mayor’s South London household home.
A pregnant passer-by who noticed the bag riskily kicked it earlier than telling her companion.
He took in the haul, which included an MP5 semi-automatic Heckler & Koch carbine, a Glock pistol, Taser and ammunition.
Jordan Griffiths, who referred to as cops, stated: “My companion noticed the bag sitting in the street by the kerbside and have become suspicious.
“She went over to it and kicked it to see what it is likely to be. But it was actually heavy and didn’t transfer.
“It was lucky one of the guns inside didn’t go off or else she and our baby due next month could have been shot and killed.”
Jordan’s girlfriend went indoors and instructed him in regards to the bag.
Scaffolder Jordan stated: “I went out to take a look and picked up the bag and it was actually heavy.
“I believed it is likely to be full of cash and took it inside utilizing each my fingers as a result of of its weight.
“I took it upstairs and put it on my mattress and opened the bag up. I couldn’t consider my eyes.
“There was a handgun in the entrance pocket and a sub-machine gun in the primary half of the bag.
“There was additionally a Taser in there and in the again of the bag there was one other pocket which felt prefer it was full of bullets.
“My godfather was visiting and we just stood there looking at the guns in shock.”
Jordan laid the guns out on the mattress and took a photograph of them with his telephone earlier than calling police.
Lying unfastened in the bag was the US-made semi-automatic Heckler & Koch MP5SF A3 carbine which fires as much as 800 rounds a minute.
The Taser stun gun, succesful of zapping targets with 50,000 volts, was in a nylon holster.
And the Austrian Glock 17 pistol, fitted with no less than ten rounds, was in a leather-based holster.
Jordan stated: “I couldn’t consider my eyes and took some footage as proof of what we had discovered.
“I referred to as the police and instructed them what I had discovered and inside a couple of minutes they turned as much as accumulate the guns.
“When they arrived they have been actually shocked. They appeared via the bag fastidiously and hurriedly took them away.
“I used to be instructed they’d been left there by one of Sadiq Khan’s security officers, which made sense as he lives right here.
“I asked the police whether there might be a reward for finding the guns and one of them said ‘We will give you a bag of sweets’.”
Jordan, who additionally shared doorbell footage of officers gathering the haul, added: “I nonetheless can’t consider the guns had been simply left there in the street.
“There’s a crack home close by and if somebody from there had discovered the guns they might have been bought on the street and used for killing individuals.
“I hate to think what might have happened if any of the people in Clapham had found that bag. It could have been mayhem.”
The Met’s directorate of skilled requirements is investigating the circumstances and the 5 armed safety officers have been briefly suspended from frontline duties pending the result.
A Met Police spokesperson stated: “At round 21:40hrs, a member of the general public referred to as police after discovering a bag containing Met-issued firearms and a Taser on a street in South London.
“Within seven minutes of the decision officers arrived on the scene and safely recovered the objects.
“We are urgently reviewing the circumstances of this incident and recognise the priority it might trigger.
“At this stage it’s believed the bag was misplaced by on-duty officers a short while earlier than the member of the general public situated it.
“An inner evaluate was instantly launched into the circumstances.
“Five officers have been removed from frontline duties while these enquiries remain ongoing.”
Sir Sadiq has been criticised for an escalation of crime in London.
In the 12 months to March 2025, police recorded 1,116 offences involving firearms in the capital alone.
Across the nation, 32 individuals have been killed by a licensed or unlicensed gun in the identical 12 months.
Marks & Spencer’s retail director Thinus Keeve has referred to as for a crackdown on violence — warning it’s “getting worse, not better”.
He stated he had written to Sir Sadiq to induce him to offer extra funding for the police amid harmful lootings in his shops.
M&S chief govt Stuart Machin has additionally written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
In the final week teenagers have been seen raiding outlets together with M&S in mass meet-ups which the police stated was “fuelled by online trends”.
Six teenage women have been arrested after two separate incidents in Clapham, South London.
Meanwhile, sources questioned why the officers had eliminated the non-public weapons and put them in the bag outside Sir Sadiq’s home.
One former Met firearms officer stated: “Police officers are solely human and errors might be made.
“But one thing as critical as this could have repercussions for these concerned.
“There need to be questions on why safety officers have been having to divest themselves of their weapons in the street in the primary place?
“I can’t perceive why they wouldn’t carry their weapons on them till they arrived safely again at their base.
“Mistakes happen though. I know of at least one Special Forces operator who left his pistol in the toilets of a motorway service station. Even monkeys fall out of trees.”
Retired detective chief inspector Mick Neville stated: “Having labored in South London, there’s the ever-present menace of gun crime.
“Too many villains would have been more than happy to seek out this bag containing automated weapons and a Taser.
“Luckily for the Met, the people finding this haul of shooters were first-class citizens who did the right thing and handed it in.”
Mr Neville added: “The police are there to forestall gun crime — not probably facilitate it by handing out lethal weapons loaded with ammunition.
“How dreadful would it not have been for the Met to seek out out that somebody had been shot with one of their very own guns or tortured with a police-issued Taser.
“The officer was fortunate this time and can little doubt face some variety of disciplinary motion.
“But we are all human and mistakes happen. Police firearms officers are highly professional and this is a very rare event. Their bravery keeps us safe.”
Labour politician Sir Sadiq receives 24-hour armed safety after repeated threats to his security.
The married dad of two revealed at a Labour Party convention fringe assembly in 2021 how he has 15 cops on a staff preserving him secure “around the clock.”
He stated he wants safety as a result of “colour of his skin and the god he worships” and stated it was “tough” on his household.
