Residents left ‘like sitting ducks’ amid RAF Fairford incident

A couple, who asked not to be named, claims Whelford villagers were warned to stay home on Saturday night – hours before the alarm was first raised by a farmer.

The pair were evacuated from their home the following morning, after the vans were found abandoned at the end of their driveway.

But when the husband stepped outside, he said he was confronted by armed police.

“I was trying to get my wallet out to say, ‘look I’m a resident here’,” he said.

“Then one of them got out of the vehicle and put a gun on me, in my direction.

“Then the other officer also got out, put a gun on me, and said ‘Who’s asked you to leave?’.”

The couple said they and and their terrified child were briefly trapped inside their home before managing to escape through a neighbour’s property.

After being allowed to return home, the pair saw the van doors had been “blown off” and their contents emptied, with water butts and oil drums strewn on the ground.

“All of a sudden, you see on the news the five suspected terrorists have been released,” the husband said.

“You’re thinking, ‘Is this for real?’.

“We’ve all been panicking for the best part of a day and a bit. Are our homes going to get blown up? Could we have been blown up?”

The family say they are “angry” over an absence of communication from authorities in the days leading up to the incident, alongside the lack of reassurance afterwards.