Room for one: Queen given the inside story

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh got a taste of life behind bars when they inspected a police cell yesterday.

With a spartan bed and mattress, aluminium toilet and a hand dryer, the 8ft by 6ft space was a far cry from the luxury of Buckingham Palace. The royal couple walked around the cell during a visit to the new 30 million Warwickshire Justice Centre in Leamington Spa, the first in the country to combine all the offices of every agency involved in the criminal justice system.

The 84-year-old Queen and Prince Philip, 89, chuckled when John Burbeck, the official responsible for the integrated centre, invited them into the cell, saying: "And this is the hotel accommodation."

The Queen asked: "How many people can you have in one of these?" Inspector Lee McIntosh said it was for just one.