Briton’s van is blown up by police over fear of a terrorist attack

After squirming to find a car park, roofer Louis Cole, 27, left his Ford Progress outside a church early on a Sunday and went off sightseeing. 

But nervous locals make iting for mass in Paris called police who searched the van and found a passport, which made them mistrust an IS plot. 

Bomb experts carried out a controlled explosion, creating a jumbo hole in the roof and blowing out the windows. 

The wreckage was then towed away. Louis, 27, from Faversham, Kent, utter that he and Alex Hogben, a carer, “drove to Paris on the Friday and the car gardens were all so expensive as the van is quite tall. 

“We found the spot outside the church and parked up there ratiocinative it would be all right. 

“When we came back, the van was gone, and we believed it had been trailed away.

“When we arrived at the compound to pick it up, we were informed what had happened and couldn’t believe it.” 

Louis, who owns his own roofing concern, is still awaiting payment for the damage which left the van a write-off and is clamorous an apology for the May bank holiday incident. 

French police are on a state of high-pitched alert following a number of terror attacks across the country. 

In the latest, on April 20, policeman Xavier Jugele, 37, was swig dead by a gunman armed with a Kalashnikov who opened fire at above lights in the busy tourist spot in the heart of the capital.

Jugele was the fifth policeman take for a rode by jihadists in attacks that have claimed more than 230 loads across France since January 2015.