LONDON, Sept 14 (AFP) - British officials Tuesday conceded faults in security at Buckingham Palace after a protestor dressed as Batman evaded armed guards and scaled the walls of the royal residence.
However, Home Secretary David Blunkett said the scare exposed a dilemma between ensuring security for Queen Elizabeth II and allowing the public an unhindered view of the palace.
"I'm not satisfied that everything worked perfectly or that the alarms and camera did," Blunkett said.
Jason Hatch, a member of a group called Fathers 4 Justice, used a ladder to climb up to a ledge next to the main balcony and unfurled a banner supporting his group's campaign for the rights of divorced or separated fathers to visit their children.
After a five-hour standoff, the caped crusader for fathers' rights surrendered to police to the cheers of crowds outside the gated palace, ending the latest security scare at Buckingham Palace.
No members of the royal family were in the palace at the time, a palace spokeswoman said, with the queen herself at Balmoral, her country estate in Scotland.
Blunkett, speaking on BBC radio, appeared to rule out dramatic security measures.
"It would be very easy indeed to stop people from getting anywhere near our major palaces and monuments" by, for instance, erecting concrete barriers, he said.
But he added: "I don't want such a society. Neither do the royal family... The terrorists would have actually won if people couldn't actually walk round those palaces and monuments,"
He said a "happy balance" was required, "and we're trying to develop it".
Royal security had supposedly been beefed up since a series of gaffes last year.
An undercover reporter gained work as a Buckingham Palace servant in the run-up to a visit by US President George W. Bush, only months after a comedian managed to gatecrash Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle.