World leaders descend on the capital to bid Queen farewell

FROM near and far they came – emperors, royals, presidents and prime ministers.

-  Marco Giannangeli

They were united by the single purpose of paying their respects to the greatest monarch the modern world has seen.

More than 500 heads of state will attend tomorrow’s funeral for Queen Elizabeth.

But those expecting to witness presidential motorcades battle it out for space will largely be disappointed. Most will be ferried to Westminster Abbey in a convoy of coaches with blacked-out windows and flanked by a fleet of black vans, containing officers from the Met Police Counter Terrorism Command unit and bodyguards.

Each security team will this weekend pass their government identification to the police. They will also be monitored by the security services at MI5.

Even with individual vehicles limited, the event will still bring challenges for the Met Police elite Special Escort Group of armed motorcyclists, who are trained to keep convoys moving with minimal disruption.

The SEG has had to boost its ranks of riders to 200, using traffic police riders from neighbouring forces.