I CLOSED HIS EYES & SAID: I’M SORRY

BY TOM PETTIFOR A BRAVE MP who came to the aid of the police officer stabbed in the Westminster terror attack told him he was “sorry” after he was pronounced dead.

Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood choked back tears as he told an inquest that he “closed the eyes” of hero PC Keith Palmer after he died.

Ellwood rushed to the scene after Khalid Masood stabbed PC Palmer outside Parliament.

The Tory MP, an ex-Royal Green Jacket soldier, said he ignored people fleeing the scene with “panic in their eyes” and ran to the officer’s aid.

Pausing and appearing to fight back tears, Ellwood told how medics opened the hero officer’s chest as they tried to save his life.

He said: “Forgive me – it’s sometimes easier to do the helping rather than to talk about it afterwards.”

Ellwood and one other person were left with PC Palmer’s body after he was declared dead, at 3.15pm on March 22 last year. He said: “We both covered the body as best we could, closed the eyes and I said: ‘I’m sorry’.

“It was very, very silent. It was a very strange end to a very traumatic four or five minutes – to suddenly be left completely alone with just one other person.”

Ellwood also told the Old Bailey that his brother was killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002.

On the day of the Westminster atrocity, Ellwood said he heard a “significant crash” followed by “screams”. He saw people running from Parliament’s Carriage Gates with “panic in their eyes”.

TOBIAS ELLWOOD ON INTERVENING IN ATTACK

Ellwood said: “They were shouting, ‘Go back, go back’.”

At that stage, armed officers had arrived at the scene. Ellwood said he stepped forward, making it clear who he was, to help give first aid.

He said PC Palmer had lost a lot of blood and appeared pale but still had a pulse. His wounds, particularly one under his left arm, were major.

The MP said people “must not be so risk averse” by relying solely on security services in a terror attack.

He explained: “I know the official advice is to step back and report it but ... if more of us step forward, the message gets through that no terrorist is going to win.”

It also emerged that armed officers had not been at Carriage Gates for almost an hour before PC Palmer was attacked. Masood killed five people before police shot him dead.