Lily Allen Lands AFP Officers In Hot Water With Prank Arrest Photo

Splendour In The Grass Sunday-night headliner Lily Allen has landed members of the nation’s constabulary in hot water after a prank photo depicting her handcuffed and on her knees at the Gold Coast Airport caught the attention of the Australian Federal Police.

As The New Zealand Herald reports, upon landing at Gold Coast Airport ahead of her performance at the Byron Bay camping festival that evening, Allen asked waiting AFP officers there for obvious security reasons to put her in handcuffs for a picture, to which the police obliged. The photo was swiftly taken and posted to Instagram and then linked to on Twitter, on which Allen has followers numbering in the multiple millions.

However, as can be seen from the now-defunct link in her tweet, the picture – which apparently netted nearly 8000 likes on Instagram – has since been taken down, after AFP brass were alerted to the obvious breach of protocol on the part of the star-struck cops – which is now reportedly under investigation.

"At her request, members involved placed open handcuffs for a photo opportunity," an AFP spokesman told the Australian Daily Mail.

"It appears the members involved were caught in the moment and standard protocol were breached. It is subject to internal processes."

For her part, Allen has remained tight-lipped on the controversy so far, with the singer having just boarded a US-bound plane, but it will be interesting to see whether she is able or cares to publicly weigh in to the controversy once she’s back on solid ground.

See non-controversial pics of Lily Allen performing on Day 3 of Splendour In The Grass right here.