"Osama bin Laden" gatecrashes William's party

Prince William celebrated his 21st birthday with an Out Of Africa-themed party at Windsor Castle. Rooms at Windsor Castle were transformed into scenes from the African bush for the evening.

An intruder penetrated all the security and stumbled onto the stage and grabbed the microphone during William’s speech to the guests.

The intruder was a stand-up comic in the guise of Osama bin Laden. Aaron Barschak, 36, wore a false beard, a turban and a pink dress. He said his name was Osama and did his comedy terrorist routine. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip laughed, thinking it was part of the fun. Barschak also planted a kiss on William's cheek.

William said: "I didn’t know my brother could do an accent like that."

Barschak was not caught, arrested or taken away until he went to get some champagne after the incident.

The British interior minister, David Blunkett, ordered an enquiry into the serious security lapse. Such lapses have been a recurrent theme for the British royal family. In the past an intruder broke into Buckingham Palace and spoke to Queen Elizabeth in her bedroom.

This is the first security lapse to have occurred when all the senior members of the royal family were presumably all in the same room. Security outside Windsor Castle was the responsibility of Thames Valley Police, the local regional police unit, and the royal protection team inside the castle.

Barschak scaled two or three walls, one by climbing a tree that had not been cut back, and had gained entry to the castle through a back entrance guarded by a dozy Scotland Yard royal protection officer. Once inside the castle, it would have been easy for him to get around security barriers because everyone was wearing fancy dress.

Barschak had changed into his outfit in a local pub. Landlord Ken Thomson said: "He came in wearing jeans and a casual shirt, bought a pint of lager and walked through to the toilets with a carrier bag.

"When he came out he had a false beard, a turban-type thing on his head and a lady’s frock that he couldn’t get the zip done up on. He was naked underneath but for a weird hairy wig on his manhood. He stank of body odour, absolutely reeked, so we asked him to go and stand outside.

"He said he had a party to go to. Obviously nobody thought for a minute it was at the castle."

If the intruder had been a suicide bomber all the senior members of the royal family could have been killed. If they had been, the British king would now be Prince Edward who was not attending the party.

The police officers at the castle had ignored at least seven alarms and failed to spot Barschak five times on CCTV, the official report later concluded.

The report described the police control room monitoring the castle security system as “totally inadequate