The day terror struck at the heart of British democracy

26 March 2017 - 02:00 By Robert Mendick
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A victim lies on the road in the aftermath of this week's attack on Westminster Bridge by a lone British-born terrorist.
A victim lies on the road in the aftermath of this week's attack on Westminster Bridge by a lone British-born terrorist.
Image: REUTERS

One man, armed only with a vehicle and a kitchen knife, created carnage in a place where tourists and MPs had felt safe, writes Robert Mendick

It was the terrorist attack that police and security services had always feared, but hoped would never come.

On Wednesday, a man, dressed all in black, drove a car at 80km/h the full length of Westminster Bridge, aiming deliberately at pedestrians and cyclists.

The bodies were scattered in his wake. One woman died after she was hit and thrown under the wheels of a bus; another woman was struck as she walked past a stand selling postcards to tourists. She lay on the ground under the shadow of Big Ben, blood pouring from her head and seeping into cracks in the pavement.

The driver of the Hyundai 4x4 then crashed into the iron railings that surround the Palace of Westminster, hitting at least two more pedestrians. He leapt from the car and ran around the corner, brandishing a kitchen knife, 20cm long.

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Hundreds of panicked tourists and workers ran for their lives while the attacker headed for Parliament Square and pushed past police officers at the barrier to New Palace Yard. Just within the entrance he slashed and stabbed at an unarmed policeman, who would later die of his wounds.

It was only then that the marauder was stopped in his tracks as a plain-clothes officer, possibly a minister's bodyguard or member of the security services, pulled out his pistol and fired two or three shots into the intruder's chest.

Terror had struck at the very heart of Britain and its government.

Prime Minister Theresa May had been due to leave the House of Commons for the short drive to Downing Street when the attack happened.

Police said five were confirmed dead: the terrorist, the policeman and three people killed on the bridge. At least 50 more were injured, several of them critically. The death toll, it was feared, would rise.

"This is a day that we had planned for - that we all hoped would never happen - but sadly it is now a reality," said acting deputy commissioner Mark Rowley, who is in overall charge of Britain's counter-terrorism police.

May later declared : "We will never give in to terror; we will never allow hate and evil to drive us apart."

The carnage had begun a few hours earlier.

"At first I thought the car had lost balance, but he was going in and coming back in a zig-zag, he did it about three times," said Ismail Hassan, who was riding his motorbike on Westminster Bridge when he saw the grey Hyundai Santa Fe - registered in Chelmsford, Essex - career towards him. "The car was hitting people on the pavement," he said.

"The third time [he zig-zagged] there was a guy who collapsed in the middle of the road. He wasn't moving at all. At first we didn't know what was happening, it took less than 10 seconds."

Hassan attempted to hold people back as an ambulance was called. "I'm sickened, I don't know what's going on," he said.

One victim was seen trapped under the rear wheel of a bus. A junior doctor later confirmed the worst. Colleen Anderson of St Thomas's Hospital said a female pedestrian had died.

block_quotes_start I heard what I thought was just a collision and then I looked through the window of the taxi and [saw] someone down, obviously in great distress block_quotes_end

"I confirmed one fatality. A woman. She was under the wheel of a bus. She died, confirmed her death at the scene.

"There were people across the bridge. There were some with minor injuries, some catastrophic," she said.

Radek Sikorski, Poland's former foreign minister and now a senior fellow at the Harvard Centre for European Studies, posted a video on Twitter showing people lying injured, one of the first posted.

"I heard what I thought was just a collision and then I looked through the window of the taxi and [saw] someone down, obviously in great distress," said Sikorski. "Then I saw a second person down, and I started filming, then I saw three more people down, one of them bleeding profusely."

Another witness told of seeing a body floating "face down" in the Thames. It wasn't clear if the woman had been hit by the car and tossed over the bridge or had jumped into the water to avoid being hit.

Another body could be seen lying at the foot of the stairwell that leads up to the bridge from the river footpath. The victim had either jumped or was flung onto the rain-soaked paving slabs below. It didn't look like anything could help him.

Later, a white-and-blue scene-of-crime tent was pitched over the body and a stretcher brought to the scene.

Back on the bridge, three French schoolboys on a trip to London had been critically injured. "Three of us were hit, we don't know if they are dead or not," said the group's teacher. "I cannot speak anymore, I don't know what to say."

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One of the group of 10 - a young teenage girl - sat and wept openly on a bench a few hundred yards from the scene of devastation and destruction.

Martin Pearce, 32, filmed the aftermath. "There is blood everywhere," he said.

"I don't know why I'm crying but people have been shot or stabbed all over the place."

In truth, what he had witnessed was the result of a car used as a weapon.

Police officers were also hit and injured. They had been walking along the bridge, having just come from a commendation ceremony. One of the group, who was in his 30s, suffered a head injury.

After perhaps 10 seconds, the Hyundai had come to a halt just off the bridge; the driver, deliberately or otherwise, having crashed into the railings opposite parliamentary offices in Portcullis House.

Witnesses had described how the man had then leapt from the car. But his attack was far from over.

Rick Longley, a health and safety manager, recalled: "He got out the car. I was standing next to the policeman right at the entrance where Big Ben is right behind you.

"There was a car crash and all the crowd surged around the corner. I couldn't work out why they were surging. But as the crowd surged, this guy with a beard came over my shoulder, brushed me and then he got a huge knife and was plunging it into the policeman. He was literally with a huge knife plunging it into this guy.

"I've never seen anything like it. The policeman was cowering. He didn't know what to do."

Katie Marthini, who was on holiday, said: "We heard four shots. It was in the enclosure next to Big Ben. I was next to it. I didn't see what happened next. It's terrifying. We ran. Everyone was running."

Jayne Wilkinson, another tourist, said: "We were taking photos of Big Ben and we saw all the people running towards us, and then there was an Asian guy in about his forties carrying a knife about seven or eight inches long.

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"There were three shots fired, and then we crossed the road and looked over. The man was on the floor with blood. He had a lightweight jacket on, dark trousers and a shirt. He was running through those gates, towards Parliament, and the police were chasing."

Her partner, David Turner, added: "There was a stampede of people running out. You saw the people and you thought: 'What the hell is going on?'"

Journalists witnessed the events too. Gordon Rayner, the Daily Telegraph political editor, said: "A man who appeared to be carrying a knife, who had got around 25 yards inside the gates, was rushing towards a policeman who pulled a pistol and fired three shots into his chest from around six feet away.

"Knocked off his feet by the impact of the bullets, he fell backwards, onto the cobbles."

Quentin Letts, the Daily Mail's parliamentary sketch writer, said: "I saw a thickset man in black clothes come through the gates ... he had something in his hand, it looked like a stick of some sort, and he was challenged by a couple of policemen in yellow jackets.

"And one of the yellow-jacketed policemen fell down and we could see the man in black moving his arm in a way that suggested he was stabbing or striking the yellow-jacketed policeman.

"As this attacker was running towards the entrance, two plain-clothed guys with guns shouted at him what sounded like a warning; he ignored it and they shot two or three times and he fell."

With the policeman on the floor, Tobias Ellwood, minister for the Middle East and Africa, attempted to save his life. Ellwood, whose brother died in the Bali bombing in 2002, gave the officer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and stemmed the blood flow by applying pressure to the wounds.

Inside parliament, security services went into overdrive. The prime minister had been in the voting lobby and was bundled out and into a waiting silver Jaguar car.

MP Andrew Bridgen saw May being led to safety: "The prime minister [was] moved away by the biggest plain-clothed police officer I've ever seen. He put his arm around her and took her very quickly away."

MP Grant Shapps described the ordeal. "It's something everyone has feared at some point," he said. "I was walking through the cloisters and I hear four pops. The police have got their weapons drawn in the palace yard. An officer shouted 'Get down!' and we were on our hands and knees. I thought: 'OK, this is it now.' I came back into the lobby.

"People were calm. We were on our hands and knees but calm. You can't stop a lunatic in a car but it's very important we carry on as usual."

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Parliament was put into lockdown. Rumours spread of a second assailant, a theory only dismissed by Scotland Yard several hours later.

As many as 600 ministers, MPs, researchers and journalists were kept locked in Westminster Hall. Officers took details of those in the hall, many of whom will have witnessed the attack or its aftermath.

Outside the palace, emergency services had gone to work, setting up makeshift treatment areas for the wounded. An air ambulance landed in Parliament Square.

Some pupils from St John and St Francis Church School in Bridgwater, Somerset, had been on a trip to Westminster.

To calm their nerves, the pupils, aged 10 and 11, began singing. A member of the school staff tweeted: "We are safe, happy and lightening the mood with a sing-song."

A Labour councillor tweeted: "Apparently there are schoolchildren singing songs in parliament to lift people's spirits. How beautifully British."

It was a rare moment of humanity in a terrible day. - ©The Daily Telegraph, London

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