A man has been arrested in London after his car crashed into the main gates leading to Downing Street, where the UK Prime Minister lives and works.
In video broadcast by the BBC, a silver hatchback can be seen driving directly at the wrought-iron gates which prevent public access to Downing Street, setting off a rapid security response at one of London's most-fortified sites.
Armed officers arrested a man at the scene around 4.20pm on Thursday (1.20am Friday AEST) "on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving", Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
No one was injured and police said they were not treating the incident as terror-related, with local officers, rather than counterterrorism detectives, handling the investigation.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was in Downing Street at the time of the incident on Thursday, but left soon after for a scheduled visit, the BBC reported.
Video footage posted on social media showed a car heading straight for the gates at low speed across Whitehall, the main thoroughfare in London's government district.
Footage shot soon after showed a car with its trunk open up against the tall metal gates. Several police officers minutely inspected the vehicle, removing items from the trunk and inside the car and placing them in evidence bags.
About two hours after the crash, a car transporter arrived to take the vehicle away.
It was not immediately clear whether the crash was deliberate. Police said they were working to establish the circumstances.
"I heard a bang and looked up and saw loads of police with taser guns shouting at the man," said witness Simon Parry, 44.
"A lot of police vehicles came very quickly and were very quick to evacuate the area."
The BBC showed a photo of officers leading away a man with handcuffed hands behind his back.
UK's Met Police had cordoned off Whitehall - the main road running past Downing St and where other politicians are based - in the aftermath of the incident.
Officers lifted the barriers around a wide area of London's government district less than two hours after the collision took place, allowing people back into Whitehall.
The street normally teems with civil servants and tourists keen to see the nearby Houses of Parliament and other historic buildings.
"A small cordon remains in place outside Downing Street after a car collided with the gates earlier this afternoon," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. "The incident is being dealt with by local officers in Westminster and isn't currently being treated as terror-related."
Downing Street is a narrow street with a row of Georgian houses that includes the prime minister's official residence at No. 10.
Public access to the street is restricted and the gates are protected at all times by armed police officers.
The gates were erected in 1989 in response to threats from Irish Republican Army militants.
In 1991 the IRA fired three mortars at the street, one of which exploded in the backyard of No. 10 while Prime Minister John Major was leading a Cabinet meeting inside. Three police officers and a civil servant suffered minor injuries.
The area was targeted in 2017, when an extremist inspired by the Islamic State group killed four people with a vehicle on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer to death outside Parliament.
Seats of power around the world are often magnets for protest, and sometimes violent attack. The incident came three days after a man crashed a rented truck into a security barrier outside the White House in Washington, got out and began waving around a Nazi flag. Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, has been charged with damaging U.S. property.
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