Hampshire County Council apologises to Buckingham Palace after accidentally announcing Prince Philip had died

A webpage that passed on the ‘deepest sympathies’ from the council was displayed for a few minutes yesterday afternoon and the local authority has blamed an ‘internal technical error’.

A spokeswoman for Hampshire County Council said: ‘We are currently investigating this highly unusual and regrettable occurrence.

In order to be able to respond quickly to events, the county council has procedures in place to ensure it is well-prepared for all eventualities.

‘These measures include draft webpages for significant events. Unfortunately, as a result of an internal technical error, one of these pages was inadvertently published.

‘We apologise sincerely for this having occurred and we are apologising directly to the Lord Lieutenant and Buckingham Palace.’