A Wembley man who scaled the perimeter wall of Buckingham Palace before “admiring” the gardens for 10 minutes is a convicted murderer, a court heard.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court were told Dennis Hennessy, of Barnhill Road, was on licence after being convicted of the murder of a homeless man in 1992.

The 41-year-old cut his right hand as he climbed over the top of the wall, which is between 8ft to 10ft high, and set the alarm off.

He is then claimed to have walked around the gardens for around 10 minutes towards the Palace, where the Queen was in residence with the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of York, before being arrested by armed police.

As he was detained, he asked “is Ma’am in?” repeatedly, prosecutor Tom Nicholson told.

In interview he told police he had “walked through the gardens admiring the view”.

Hennessy pleaded guilty to one count of trespass on a protected site and one count of criminal damage.

Chief magistrate, senior district judge Howard Riddle, sentenced him to four months for trespassing and two months, to run concurrently, for damaging the wires of the alarm system.