A struggling author was arrested yesterday after sparking a royal security alert by paragliding into the grounds of Buckingham Palace in a bizarre attempt to secure a publishing deal.

Brett De La Mare, 36, from Darwin, Australia, said he was "desperate" for a publisher to notice him and "prepared to do whatever craziness it takes".

He was pursued by a police helicopter for 20 minutes as he flew over central London, and armed officers were waiting to swoop as he touched down on the Palace forecourt, where the changing of the guard ceremony takes place.

Bemused tourists, including some on the London Eye, watched as the police helicopter tried to warn him away.

The former truck driver and council worker was taken to a police station and faces possible criminal charges for breaching air safety laws.

His stunt sparked a security alert at Buckingham Palace, but a spokesman said no members of the Royal Family were in the building.

It is the second time a paraglider has breached royal security.

In 1994 naked American paraglider Jim Miller landed on the roof of the Palace.

De La Mare's flatmate Monica Kelly, a 22-year-old public relations executive from Brisbane, Australia, said yesterday's stunt was a bid to get publicity for his manuscript Canine Dawn, which she described as a Tarantino-style "sex and money adventure" novel set in the outback.

She said he had tried numerous times to take off in recent weeks but was thwarted by the weather.

He eventually succeeded in launching his motorised paraglider from Hampstead Heath.

"He had a timber propeller strapped to his back in a metal cage and it sort of motors him along, but he has to run to get up into the air," said Ms Kelly.

"I just hope none of the guards stabbed him with their little knives."

On his Internet website, www.brettdelamare.com, the author had left an open letter to "The Press, The People and Publishers".

Telling of his frustration with publishing firms in New York and London, he says he was arrested after he flew round the Empire State Building and the World Trade Centre.

There, he says, he dodged police helicopters only to land accidentally in the car park of a police station