Westminster Terror Attack Panorama

Five days ago, terror came here, to the heart of London, killing and

maiming indiscriminately. There is a breaking news story over at

Westminster Palace. We are getting reports of an incident outside the

Palace of Westminster. Breaking news, there are reports of gunshots

being heard outside the Houses of Parliament. At 2.39 last Wednesday

afternoon, Khalid Masood was seemingly just another London

motorist. Seconds later, he was a killer, driving his rented car onto

the pavement, ploughing into pedestrians on one of London's

busiest bridges. A tour guide, Adrian Istoria, saw it all. There

was screaming, like you never thought you would hear that, or

never prepared to see something like that. Those kind of expressions,

like, Jesus, help us, those expressions. Everything covered with

screaming and crying. He has mown down about three people

on Westminster Bridge. American tourists Kurt and Melissa Cochran

with the first to be hit. They were in London celebrating their 25th

wedding anniversary. A second later, a CCTV camera filmed Masood

continuing to career along the pavement at speed. Did you see the

car hit anybody? Yes, I did. The impact of Masood's car hurled

29-year-old Andreea Cristea into the River Thames. The Romanian architect

was later rescued, but suffered serious head injuries. The car

ploughed on, through the people on the bridge. I saw my first friend in

front, he left out of the way. Then I saw this black shape coming

towards me. I thought, that's a car. I felt sharp pain on my head.

18-year-old politics student Owen Lambert had just left the House of

Commons after a tour and was sightseeing on the bridge with

friends. I was spun around, then I was on the floor, on top of my

friend. I saw blood on his neck. I said to him, you are bleeding. He

gestured to me, he looked at me. He said... Well, he didn't say

anything, he looked at me, I put my hand to my head and realised it

wasn't his blood, it was mine. When he reaches the security barriers at

the end of the bridge, Masood is forced back onto the road. Driving

around those security barriers, Masood then aims his car at a more

pedestrians by the railings, round Parliament. Then he smashes into

them. In this moment, you go numb. I thought, when is this going to stop

now? It is becoming clear to those around that something is badly

wrong. At ease traffic lights, Carl might is listening to music on his

headphones, on the top of a number 159 bus, when he hears a bang. --

Carl Knight. It sounded like a really loud backfire of a car. That

is the best way I could describe it. I thought, what the hell? That is

when I turned around to see this car, and the front end of it was

completely crushed in. Then I saw two bodies on the floor. Mon dieu!

My God! He then saw Khalid Masood get out of the smashed a car. He

opens the door, he stands up, dazed, a little bit unsteady on his feet,

looking around. Carl Knight was still watching from the top of the

number 159 bus. He said Masood, after crashing his hire car, armed

with two knives, moved towards a woman with a child against the

railings here. She screamed at the knifeman not to hurt them. You know

what, you can tell a mother's love for a child in that moment. She

wrapped itself around this child, as if to protect it. Masood then

started moving around this corner, towards the eastern entrance to the

Palace of Westminster. At that point, he began gathering pace. He

went from jogging to charging. There was a person that he pushed out of

the way. He could have used the knife, but he didn't. He pushed. His

view was briefly obscured. But Daily Mail journalist Quentin Letts saw

what happened next from his office window, overlooking the yard in

front of Big Ben. We saw members of the public, pedestrians in the

street, running in apparent terror, screaming, away from some source of

violence. A second later, I saw the source of violence, a thickset man

in dark clothes. He was running towards a police officer in a

high-vis jacket. You could see him stabbing the police officer. He done

it about five times. That police officer was PC Keith Palmer. That

lasted all of one and a half seconds, I would say. It was very

quick. It was a violent, deranged movement. The police officer got off

his knees and ran to the other side, as if he was going around the

roundabout, that way. The attacker followed. Of the police appeared,

including two plainclothed figures. They issued a challenge of some

sort. I couldn't hear what it was, but I could hear that they shouted

at the man. He ignored them and kept walking, or running towards them.

Then you heard two shots and then another one afterwards. It was like

pop, pop, pop. Masood was fatally wounded, shot, it is believed, by

two members of the ministerial security unit. It had been just 82

seconds from his car first mounting the pavement on Westminster Bridge

to him being shot. Near to Masood laid PC Palmer, an officer with 15

years experience. You don't expect gunshots in Westminster. I looked up

to see what had happened and realised there were two people on

the floor and a handful of policeman around them. Former Army captain and

Afghanistan veteran Mike Crofts, in Parliament for a meeting, now

emerged from behind a car, where he was taking cover. He rushed over to

help PC Palmer. I tried to assess his wounds as best as possible. I'm

not a doctor. I looked back towards the Palace of Westminster and

screamed for a medic. He was joined shortly after by police, security

guards and Bournemouth MP Tobias Ellwood, himself a former Army

officer. He brought with him a good sense of calm. Immediately we

started to work on PC Palmer together to try to help him. You

were trying to resuscitating? Yes. Medics also worked to save Masood.

Nothing could be done for either of the men. Unfortunately, PC Palmer

died, despite our best efforts. He sacrificed himself for everyone

else. Less than an hour before the attacks, PC Palmer had been posing

for tourist pictures. Moments later, he was defending Parliament from a

terror attack. He really was heroic. Being a barrier between himself and

Parliament. There were a large number of people exiting Parliament

at that time. It frightens me to think what would have happened if

the attacker had got into the crowd. Over on the bridge, the scene was

one of horror. Owen Lambert was lucky. He had a minor head injury

and bruised leg. I looked down the bridge towards where the car had

come from. There were people lying down, people in the road, cars had

stopped. There was lots of debris everywhere, blood, lots of blood.

About 50 people had been hit by Masood's Park. Some had catastrophic

injuries. Kurt Cochran, the American tourist, died. His wife, Melissa,

survived. Aysha Frade, a mother on her way to pick up two children from

school, was killed. 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes was the oldest to die.

In the House of Commons, MPs were completely unaware of the terror

unfolding outside. That soon changed. Parliament went into

lockdown. Order. I am now going to suspend the sitting of the house.

This house is now suspended, but please wait here. Prime Minister

Theresa May was in the voting lobby. MP Andrew Bridgen was just feet away

when he saw plainclothed police officers approach her. I heard her

say, oh, he put his arm around her and very rapidly guided her out of

the back of the chamber and away. The Prime Minister was taken to her

armoured car in the speaker's courtyard. Everybody was looking out

the windows. You could see two plainclothes bodyguards with

automatic weapons, standing either side of the archway in speakers

courtyard, covering while the Prime Minister got into her car.

So, how did a polite schoolboy who loved sport and music turn into a

killer? Khalid Masood was born in Dartford in Kent on Christmas Day

1964. The name on his birth certificate, Adrian Russell Elms. As

a teenager, he called himself Adrian Ajoa as well, taking his

stepfather's name. By the early 90s, he was living a seemingly

middle-class life in the Home Counties with his then partner, Jane

Harvey. The couple worked alongside each other in a rental property

owned by the Eastwood family. I didn't have a long conversation with

him. It was apparent that the meeting that she was the leading

person within the business and that he was more there to support her in

the physical side of lifting and moving objects around. I met him 15

years ago. Seemed to me he was quite tall and physically well built.

Almost quite normal, in a way. He didn't seem aggressive or anything,

until he obviously knifed our local landlord. One minute he's cool, the

next minute he is violent, you know? He was like Jekyll and bloody Hyde.

Incredible fella. Fred Lawrence was with Adie, as he called him, when,

aged 36, Masood slashed a landlord's face with a knife in a pub car park

in East Sussex. He drew his knife out, he went for him, cut his face

and my son grabbed him. My son is big, luckily, to be honest with you,

think you would have done him. I saw him, and he had the knife. I was

walking towards him and thought, he's in a completely different frame

of mind. It was a completely different person, it was an animal.

The landlord needed 20 stitches and Masood got nearly three years in

prison. Jay loved him to bits and stuck up for him so many times, she

always tried to stick up for him. She wanted to help them. But the

couple, who had two daughters, split up after Masood was jailed for the

knife attack. In 2003, he was in prison again. An another man in the

face outside this care home in Eastbourne. How many of us know

other people around us? We deal with them, we work with them, we may be

socialise with them. Do we know them that well? Fred remembers Masood as

a troubled man, haunted by the colour of his skin. He said to me, I

don't like myself. He said, I don't like my skin. He said, I feel that

I'm not right, I'm not in the right body. I would say he was troubled in

himself. I think the sort of alienation we are seeing with him

when we are looking around the questions of race, it does fit with

people from his generation. We can see a whole generation of older

individuals involved in the jihadists mileau in the UK that very

much felt that racism first-hand. The whole country will want to know

who was responsible for this atrocity. Mr Speaker, it is still

believed that this attack acted alone and the police have no reason

to believe there are imminent further attacks on the public. His

identity is known to the police and MI5. He was once investigated in

relation to concerns about violent extremism. He was a peripheral

figure. The so-called Islamic State claimed

Masood Masood was one of their soldiers but they didn't claim to be

behind the Westminster attack. He is not a soldier, I would more describe

him as somebody who has been exploited and a man who is clearly a

lone actor, who has come up from the basement so to speak to commit a

murderous and cowardly attack. Adrian Elms became Khalid Masood

aged 40. 12 years later he attacked London.

He seems to be someone who adopted these ideas later in life. His age

of 52 puts him at the elder end of the spuct but it is not unheard of.

We don't know when Masood converted to Islam or when he became

radicalised. One former close friend told us he believes it started in

Masood 's late 30s, in prison. It was after 9/11, and Al-Qaeda

extremists were being rounded up. So we know there are senior Al-Qaeda

operatives who have been convicted before who target vulnerable I'm in

prisons. And either offer them protection or, often they will take

advantage, some times of mental health issues, there are can be a

range of factors involved in radicalisation.

Hannah's research suggests religious converted are more likely to pose a

danger. Converts are involved in

bio-terrorism so there are many more converts among the offenders we saw

over the last 20 years than among the Muslim population in the UK at

large. After he was released from prison,

Masood went to Saudi Arabia, several times, teaching English. But there

is no evidence he was add collide cloudy skied there.

-- #r5d cloudy skied there. Saudi Arabia isn't a place one would think

of for this, I think we have seen most individuals from the British

radical milieu tend to radicalise here.

When he returned, to the UK, Masood moved around, living in East London,

Crawley, Birmingham, and Luton. All places which have been linked to

terror plots. Masood settled in Luton with a new

partner and one of the daughters from his press conference

relationship. He reportedly converted her to Islam.

I think Luton is a place which is unfortunately developed a fair

profile nationally as a place where there are problems with

radicalisation, so it has a long history of these radical community,

congregating in that area. At that time, Luton was home to a

convicted extremist who made this video, scouting Parliament as a

terror target. Masood lived round the corner from the extremist and we

have been told he had social contact with other people from the area.

From Luton, there were moves to East London, and then Birmingham. Masood,

his partner and their children moved into the Winson Green area, last

year. Neighbours found him friendly, but

reserved. He was a normal person, normal

father, or husband, family man. What I've seen he was very calm. What I

notice he was like, he liked to take care of his garden.

Khalid Masood lived here in this quiet residential street for round

eight month, until a couple of months ago, the man who neighbours

said had a London accent, left a abruptly with his family. They

didn't say goodbye, or where they were going.

I had just seen a van parked in front of his garage, and just the

garage open and take out thing, not big furniture, just some things,

some stuff and then he disappeared, just in the night.

269 people were convicted of Islamic terror offences in Britain or killed

themselves as suicide bombers between 1998 and 2015.

39 of them were from Birmingham. Masood's connection to Birmingham is

interesting. My research showed that primacy of London and Birmingham as

the offenders' last known place of residence, Birmingham if particular,

the number of offenders coming from there has increased rapidly.

Two men from Birmingham, arrested following Masood's attack are still

being held on suspicion of terror offences.

One of the city's MPs was in Parliament when it was locked down.

I felt very uneasy that my city again has links to this sort of

attack, and I was really very disappointed, personally that this

had happened, because this is not the reputation I want for my city.

Birmingham's had a problem with radicalisation and we need to

address that. Good afternoon Birmingham. Two days

ago, Birmingham's Muslim community gathered to show their condemnation

of the attack. A Muslim prayer for our nation, oh Lord, unite our

nation round the principles of justice, peace, love and faith.

You don't want to go to work in the morning when these things happen,

because it is happening again, we will be associated with it. It is

that dread when you hear of an atrocity, let it be anybody but a

Muslim. There is that feeling of you will have to to explain, you will

have to distance yourself, because whether you like it or not you are

associated with it. In Birmingham, there is confused as

everyone else as to why Masood did it. He wasn't one of them. His

profile as an offender fits some of the patterns be see, he is

travelling round, he doesn't want his one location to be fixated and

therefore lots of people who supposedly know him don't know him,

because they say he seemed a nice friendly guy but they weren't able

to talk to him. That is a typical offender profile in how terrorists

move round. Thank you the organisers for today.

Though his neighbours knew Masood had upped sticks and gone, had he

left Birmingham? He used an address on the city's Hagley Road when he

rented the car he drove to London. Six days before he attacked

Westminster, Khalid Masood rented a car, from this firm in Birmingham.

It was a grey Hyundai 4x4. A big and is heavy car. Car. Enterprise say

they identified the vehicle, when they saw pictures of the attack and

recognised the license plate. And they immediately contacted the

authorities. The night before the attack, Masood

stayed in Brighton, just 64 miles from Westminster.

He was very friendly, smiling, and really nothing suspicious about the

person, he was a normal guest who wanted to stay at the hotel.

On Wednesday March 22nd, Masood headed for London.

One main line of police inquiry we have learned is his activities on

social media ming in the days leading up to and on the day of the

attack. Who was he communicating with? We know that some of the

platforms they use in social media are so heavily increpted it is

difficult to understand who is reading what. And what we need to do

is make sure that the companies, the IT companies that own those

platforms are responsible. Whether or not Masood had

accomplices, would be extremists can find inspiration and advice online.

The Islamic State is now encouraging the use of knives and vehicles, in

low tech terror attacks. What we have seen from across

Europe, from France, from Belgium, people can, with very little low

tech capability, arm themselves with knives, get into a large vehicle or

a car, and if they have that murderous intent, they can commit

these types of offences. Now that is a real shift, that is a real

challenge for all of us. Previously you had to target public transport

and do these big dramatic thing, now groups have realised this sort of a

basic attack is just as effective, and will get just as much attention.

So how should the police respond? PC Palmer was particle's first line of

defence but he was unarmed. Should he have been armed? There is

bound to be questions over whether anything would have been different

if there were more armed police officers there, if PC Palmer had a

gun. We will never know the answer to that, but what I think is

important, is that there is many tactical options in terms of dealing

with violent threat. One is firearms. The idea that suddenly

arming a police officer will protect them from a sudden violent attack by

a person who appears otherwise when they first approach, to be acting

innocently, I think that may be a little bit fanciful. So I am not

sure that arming police officers on the gate is necessarily going to be

what the police think is the right solution.

We have to go with the threats that we are currently dealing with, and I

think MPs have to take the advice of the professionals in the police

service, in terms of what we can do. This idea the traditional view of

the British Bobby, wearing that helmet and walking on the street and

that kind of stuff. We don't live in that world any more.

Security at the Palace of Westminster is now being reviewed.

But is it ever possible to counter these sos of attacks? I think we

have been astonishing fortunate in the last few year, because our

security services have been very agile at stopping plots but I think

we have to accept that you can't prevent a lone actor who decides one

morning that the time has come for him to go out and kill other human

beings to make some sort of statement.

13 people are still in hospital, following last week's attack.

Whatever motivated Masood, he caused devastation with just a hire car and

two knives. Such a simple thing, someone driving

a car, across a bridge, with a couple of knives in his car. Then,

he caused so much damage, and no-one can defend against that. No-one.

My thoughts are with the families who have lost people, and their

friends and their colleagues, it is deeply sad and been driven by a man

who has become extremely angry and isolated within society. I don't

want to blame anyone. I want us to make sure we are thankful for what

we have, for the people that are still alive, and the people who are

currently recovering. We should sort of try and unify

through that, through love and compassion, rather than through our

hatred and anger about what happened.

While the public pay their respects outside Parliament, the police are

appealing for any information about the attacker.

Without that, they say, they might never know why Khalid Masood brought

terror to London.