The British media today ignored pleas by the Metropolitan police not to show pictures of unexploded bombs discovered in a car in Luton.

In a note to newsdesks, it had implored in the "strongest possible terms" not to show the pictures, which had been obtained by the US broadcaster ABC News and shown on American television.

Sky News however started showed pictures of an x-ray of one of the bombs yesterday afternoon, making it clear that they pictures had been taken from ABC.

The Met issued a note saying it was "aware that ABC News has obtained a number of unauthorised images relating to the investigation into, and the crime scenes from, the London bombings of July 7 from a third party."

But it added: "We are requesting in the strongest possible terms that media organisations DO NOT publish these images or any similarly unauthorised images because they may prejudice both the ongoing investigation and any future prosecutions."

Nevertheless, the front pages of this morning's Sun newspaper, Daily Express, Independent, The Times and the Guardian all had the nail-bomb x-ray picture.

Though the police refused to confirm ABC's claims yesterday evening that there were 16 bombs in the car, many newspapers including the Sun today published the claims.