Queen queue latest: Mourners warned of 24-hour wait as man in custody after approaching coffin

A terminal brain tumour patient and beauty queen said she is “still in shock” after receiving one of the last letters from the Queen before her death.

Kerri Parker, 38, has raised more than £16,000 for UK-based medical charity Brain Tumour Research and wrote to the Queen to thank her after attending a Platinum Jubilee Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in July.

Ms Parker, who was crowned Ms Universe World International in Miami last month, said it “broke my heart a little” to receive a response from the monarch dated 5 September, just three days before the Queen died at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire.

“I just can’t believe it – my name and what I’ve done for Brain Tumour Research was one of the last things that she’d have seen, as far as correspondence goes,” Ms Parker, from Norwich, told the PA News agency.

“Someone of that stature, to not (have just) seen my name but seen what I’ve achieved for Brain Tumour Research is just absolutely remarkable.

“It’s such a wonderful tribute and must have been one of her last letters… It’s a little bit of history, something I’ll treasure that broke my heart a little.

“I’m still in shock, it’s crazy.”

A man is in police custody after he moved out of the queue of mourners and approached the Queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall on Friday night.

Metropolitan Police said the incident occurred at about 10pm, as the live feed from inside the hall cut away for a brief period.

A statement from Scotland Yard said: “Around 22:00hrs on Friday 16 September officers from the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command detained a man in Westminster Hall following a disturbance.

“He was arrested for an offence under the Public Order Act and is currently in custody.”

A spokesperson for UK parliament offered more detail of the man’s actions, saying in a statement: “We’re aware of an incident in Westminster Hall, in which a member of the public moved out of the queue and towards the Catafalque.

“They have now been removed from the Hall and the queue restarted with minimal disruption.”

Advice warning mourners not to travel to join the queue of people waiting to pay their respects to the Queen has been lifted this morning.

Late on Friday night, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) urged mourners to check back on Saturday morning as the queue was “ near total capacity” and the wait time had reached more than 25 hours.

However the advice was lifted at 8am today as the wait time dropped slightly to 24 hours.

DCMS advised the end point of the queue was once more accessible in Southwark Park.

Blanket-wrapped bleary-eyed mourners dragged themselves through the queue by Waterloo Bridge at 7am this morning.

Still 3-4 hours away from the front of the line, they’ve braved the worst of the London night where temperatures dropped to 6C.

Some stepped out of line to get a hot drink, while others visibly beaten by the cold and long hours were forced to sit down and gather themselves.

But sisters Caroline, Rosie and Sandra who travelled from Dublin on Friday morning to pay their respects said there was “no chance of turning back now.”

“We’ve been here since 10pm last night,” Caroline Delaney said.

“It was freezing, really organised but through the night it got very cold,” her sister Rosie McBride added.

“At one point we were stuck for about an hour and a half without moving – that’s terrible in the cold. There was a rehearsal so things really slowed down,” Rosie said.

“We’re excited now to get to the front.”

Images show mourners still queuing to see the Queen’s coffin as the sun came up in London this morning.

People can be seen wrapped in ordinary and so-called space blankets while others are wearing woollen hats with their hands crammed into their pockets as they wait in line alongside the River Thames.

Mourners have been asked to not travel to join the queue to pay their respects to the Queen, as the wait time has reached over 25 hours and the temperature has dipped into single figures.

A funeral director whose family firm helped organise the funerals of Queen Victoria and Edward VII has lifted the lid on what we might expect from the Queen’s service on Monday.

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, William Banting funeral directors held the royal warrant as the undertaker to the royal household.

However, they called upon another London firm, JD Field & Son, to help with the arrangements for the funeral, which was a full military affair.

Read the story in full here:

The Queen was discussing her horses and was in “tremendous form” just a few days before she took her last breath, John Warren, her trusted bloodstock and racing adviser said.

“We sat there for hours over the weekend strategising and making plans going forward, he told the PA news agency.

“And I think the nicest thing for me is to know that she was surrounded by her family members.

“She was in such a healthy state of mind and in tremendous form.

“It’s very important to know that she was absolutely, wonderfully switched on.”

Mr Warren features in one of the most repeated TV clips where the Queen clapped her hands and beamed as her horse won in Royal Ascot’s Gold Cup in 2013.

He said it is both “shocking and “wonderful” to know that she led a long and full life, and dutiful to the very end.

The Queen’s grandchildren will stand guard around her coffin in London on Saturday, hours after their parents held an emotional vigil in the Palace of Westminster.

Notably, the Duke of Sussex will join his brother the Prince of Wales in wearing uniform around the coffin in Westminster Hall, ahead of the Queen’s state funeral on Monday.

Harry, who saw action on the front line during two tours of duty in Afghanistan, has previously been denied the chance to wear his military uniform as he publicly mourns, because he is no longer a working royal.

But royal sources say the King has decided his youngest son can wear uniform for the vigil, saying he will stand at the foot of the coffin, with William at the head.

Despite being a former Army officer, he has been in civilian dress for official events, including walking behind his grandmother’s coffin on Wednesday when it was carried to Westminster Hall for lying in state.

On Friday evening, the Queen’s children – Charles, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex – took part in their own vigil.

The King, Anne, Andrew and Edward had solemn looks on their faces as they stood vigil around their mother’s coffin, with their heads bowed throughout as members of the public filed slowly past them.

The Chinese foreign ministry confirmed on Saturday that vice president Wang Qishan will attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral at the invitation of the British government.

It comes after parliamentary sources told the BBC on Friday that a Chinese delegation visiting London for the funeral of the Queen was blocked from being allowed to see the coffin lying in state.

Denying seeing such reports, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the funeral of the Queen is an “important event for the United Kingdom”.

“Foreign delegations participating in the event upon invitation from the United Kingdom is a sign of respect to the Queen and the importance accorded to (relations with) the United Kingdom,” Ms Mao said.

The decision has prompted anger from a group of British Conservative MPs that were sanctioned by Beijing for criticising alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Mourners have been told not to travel to join the queue for the late Queen’s lying in state, as the waiting time stretched to more than 25 hours.

On Saturday morning, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) online tracker said the wait time has risen to at least 25 hours as people queued from Southwark Park, south east London.

“The queue is near total capacity with a wait time of at least 24 hours. Please do not travel to join the queue,” a statement a short while earlier said.

People already in the queue braced for chilly weather as the temperature dipped below 10C in the early morning.

Undeterred by the delay and cold weather, mourners are continuing to arrive at Westminster Hall to see the Queen for the final time.