Police lose bombing suspect in Tube chase

A suspected suicide bomber escaped on the Tube because pursuing officers lost radio contact underground, it has emerged.

Scotland Yard officers privately fear they cannot properly protect civilians because police radios do not work on the network.

The man was followed after a tip-off that he was going to blow himself up at a Burger King in Leicester Square.

Police managed to track him down as he entered a Tube station.

But they lost track of him and were unable to radio colleagues to guard the exits at other stations.

The suspect, an Asian man, was eventually caught and turned out not to be a suicide bomber.

But officers said that if the incident, last October, had been genuine the consequences would have been catastrophic.

The radio problem was identified three years ago.

Police are told to wait for London Underground staff, who are equipped with working handsets.

Richard Barnes, of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: 'I've been trying to get something done about this for years.

'I find the situation incredibly worrying.

'To have police officers deep underground where they cannot even talk to each other at either end of the station is a major issue.

'This is part of the preparedness of London for a terrorist incident.

'The one thing you have got to have as a front-line rescue service is a communication system that works.

'You have to be able to talk to each other, or you could be directing more people into danger.'

Sir Ian Blair, the Met's Deputy Commissioner, has raised the issue with David Blunkett but the Home Office argues that London Underground should pay for the equipment. Tube bosses disagree.

Meanwhile, police have been given until tomorrow to question eight men arrested in Britain over a suspected Al-Qaeda bomb plot.