A bodyguard to the stars has told how he thought e

A bodyguard to the stars has told how he thought explosives and guns were stashed under a hotel bathtub by terrorists.

Dennis Rutter, 36, a former ‘minder’ for Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shirley Bassey and Saudi royalty denied he was the one who hid the lethal arsenal in a communal hotel bathroom.

Rutter is accused of illegally keeping seven sticks of army-issue plastic explosive, five detonators, a silencer and gun barrel and a box of .

22 bullets under the tub.

When the cache was found by the manager of the Belvedere House hotel in Kensington, west London, the area was immediately sealed off and the building was evacuated.

Rutter, an ex-corporal in the First Cheshire Regiment, said he stumbled on the cache three months earlier while having a bath, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

He took the equipment to his room ‘to examine in private’ before replacing it as he believed that an anti-surveillance operation was in progress – which he did not want to compromise.

But Rutter said he kept a firing mechanism from the gun in his room to stop anyone else using it.

Quizzed by his counsel, Ian Wheatly, Rutter told the court:

‘In hindsight I should have reported it.

I didn’t tell the police because I didn’t want to compromise the operation.

‘Its common knowledge that terrorists never come to collect items.

They send couriers, someone not known in a terrorist organisation.

‘Had the stuff been monitored and watched by a surveillance agency the courier would have been watched and followed, and they would catch four
people,’ Rutter said.

But Nick Wood, prosecuting, ridiculed Rutter’s story in his closing speech: ‘Do you really believe he didn’t report it because he stumbled across a
surveillance operation.

‘To suggest he disabled a firearm but left detonators very close to PE4 explosive is not an explanation you may feel you can accept.

‘

Mr Wood suggested that although Rutter had no links to either crime or terrorism he may have let off the explosives during long walks in the mountains of Wales.

‘Could there have been an opportunity in the desolation and safety of the Brecon Beacons to have used some or all of these items.

‘Mr Rutter clearly enjoyed going back to nature and going back to army life.

‘You may think there may have been an opportunity to use that cache in the Brecon Beacons,’ Mr Wood added.

Earlier Rutter told the court how he joined the Army at 16 and toured the world where he specialised in surveillance of terrorist ‘players’.

‘My classification was ‘secret”, he told the court.

He told the court how he had been ‘compromised’ many times while staking out members of the IRA – but had to remain silent.

‘We were in a barn and a couple came in and began to have sex.

We unfortunately had to wait upstairs and let it happen,’ he told the court.

After stints in South Armagh, the jungles of Brunei and Belize, Rutter said he had to guard the Queen outside Buckingham Palace – a task he found intensely boring.

‘I preferred real soldiering, rather than marching up and down,’ Rutter said.

As well as working as a bodyguard to celebrities, Rutter said he was a model for a company called Real Creatives Worldwide.

Yesterday the court saw a video supplied by Rutter’s mother, who lives in Wallasey.

The tape, proudly marked ‘Our Den’ showed Rutter guarding Arnold Schwarzenegger during the opening of Planet Hollywood in the mid nineties.

Rutter, of Hemstal Road, West Hampstead, north London denies possession of 1.

5kg high explosive, possession of a prohibited weapon and three charges of possessing firearms without certificates on August 10 last year.

Before moving into the hotel, Rutter lived at (314) Master Quay, Rope Walk, Surrey Quays with his lover.

The trial continues.

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