Text messages and social media messages warning the public to stay off the tube in London this week is a hoax, according to police.
The message began spreading over the weekend and claims that every single Met Police officer was called into work at 04:00 for an expected terror bomb attack on the London Underground somewhere around the West End.
However, Chief Superintendent Paul Brogden confirmed that there is no specific threat:
“Social media contains lots of rumours regarding threats to tube network tomorrow. There is no specific threat so keep calm & carry on.”
Sgt. Nathan Shickle also confirmed that the specific claims about 4am emergency starts for officers were untrue:
“The “alert” doing the rounds on social about all Met officers being called in for 4am tomorrow is a hoax.”
The text of the hoax message varies, but the most common text seems to be:
I have just received this message from a friend:
“In case you have anyone in London. Don’t travel on the tubes tomorrow. Every single police officer in the met has been called into work from 4am onwards, even people on holiday are being told to catch the next flight home. They think there’s a terror threat and that it will happen on the tubes tomorrow around the west end area. So don’t go travelling on tubes. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
David Cameron announced that the UK’s terror threat had been raised “from substantial to severe” after discussions between Home Secretary Teresa May the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre on 29 August as a response to the growth of teh Islamic State (formerly ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. This means that the intelligence services believe that a terror attack is “highly likely”, but there is no specific intelligence that an attack is imminent.
