'Penny-pinching' G4S faces more fury

National Association of Retired Police Officers (Narpo) head Clint Elliot became the latest to criticise the beleaguered G4S and said that the group could have helped solve the shortfall in numbers for Olympic security guards but was never asked.

He denied reports that claimed G4S had contacted the organisation asking for help recruiting ex-police officers with security clearance and accused the firm of "penny pinching."

Narpo has 76,000 members across 111 branches who could have solved much of the 3,500 shortfall in numbers that led to the multinational being widely criticised.

Mr Elliot said: "It is astonishing that G4S can't have recruited these people in a time of high unemployment and at a time when many police officers are being forced to retire early and are actively looking for work."

A spokeswoman for G4S confirmed it had not contacted the Narpo and said it had been directly contacting retired officers whose details were already on its own database.

Equally hapless Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt defended G4S today, ludicrously claiming that it was "completely normal" for contractors on projects like the London Olympics to fail to meet their commitments.

He praised the firm for being "quite honourable" in the way it had accepted responsibility for the debacle which has seen 3,500 extra troops being drafted in after it was unable to deliver the promised numbers of security guards.

He dismissed the problem that has seen troops forced to cancel leave in order to fill the gaps as no more than a "hitch" and refused to rule out the possibility that more troops may have to be brought in.

willstone@peoples-press.com