We may never know why he did it
Cops struggle for atrocity answer
IT took just 82 seconds for Khalid Masood to wreak deadly havoc over Westminster Bridge.
But police fear the reason why Masood murdered four people including PC Keith Palmer and injured dozens more may never be known.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Senior National Coordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said: “We still believe that Masood acted alone on the day.
“We need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts to bring reassurance to Londoners, and to provide answers and closure for the families of those killed and the victims and survivors of this atrocity.
“We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this. That understanding may have died with him.”
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command said Masood’s attack started at 14:40:08 on Wednesday when his rented car mounted the northbound pavement on Westminster Bridge.
Shock
Masood left the vehicle and was shot by a police firearms officer inside the Palace of Westminster boundary at 14:41:30 after he stabbed PC Palmer to death.
Relatives and former friends insist that Masood – born Adrian Elms – was a psycho who was ripe for brainwashing by Muslim extremists while serving a jail sentence for violence.
Some ex-pals say his troubles began when he was picked on as “the only black boy in the school” in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
But others have claimed he once sided with racists and became the only black lad in the Kentish National Front.
“He was intelligent – I thought he’d end up just like any of us,” said Mark Harman, 52, g oalie i n winger Masood’s team at Huntley School for Boys in 1979.
“He was a good player. After leaving school I only saw him occasionally in the pub with schoolmates.
“For someone to suddenly swing that way, being radicalised, it’s a shock.
“It’s a shock that anyone with a bit of sense can go that way – that someone so close, from our Christian school, became an Islamic fundamentalist. You can maybe understand all t he youngsters who are unemployed and frustrated. But not s omeone who’s older, and a bit more intelligent.” Masood got his first conviction for criminal damage aged 19, in 1983. Eight years later he met Jane Harvey, a director at the chemical firm where he worked.
They had two daughters, Andi, now 24, and Teegan, 19, but split in 2000 when Masood was jailed for two years for GBH.
He is believed to have converted their daughter Andi to Islam after the separation.
In 2000 he knifed cafe owner Piers Mott in the face, leaving him scarred for life, in the car park of the Crown and Thistle pub in Northiam, East Sussex. He claimed he snapped because he was ostracised by racist villagers.
After the attack he also threatened woodsman Lee Lawrence.
Lee said: “I tried to calm him down but his eyes were rolling, he was off his head.
“He put the knife up against my throat. I grabbed his arm and pushed him away. Then he started saying, ‘What have I done, what am I doing? I’m getting help. I just want blood, I dream about killing someone’.”
His next love, Farzana Malik, married Masood in Gillingham, Kent, in 2004 – shortly after he was released from his second stint in prison.
She later fled from their home in
Crawley, West Sussex, after he became violent and controlling.
A relative said: “He was a psychopath and I mean that in the very medical definition of the word.
Wrong
“He came from a nice family, had everything, but there was something very wrong with him.” Two men were still being questioned by police last night i n connection with the Westminster atrocity. The two men from Birmingham, aged 58 and 27, are being held in custody under the Terrorism Act.
A 32- year- old woman, who was arrested in Manchester, and a 39- year- old woman, from east London, are both on bail. Seven of the 11 people arrested since the attack have now been released with no further action. Police have also have seized 2,700 items from 21 addresses, including “massive amounts of computer data”.
Fifteen people are still being treated in hospital. Two remain in a critical condition, one with life-threatening injuries. Two officers remained in hospital with “ver y significant” injuries, one of whom has been identified as PC Kristofer Aves. Assistant Commissioner Baku added: “The way that communities in London, and throughout the UK, have come together in the wake of this attack shows that we will not give into those who seek to breed discord and fear.
“Terrorists have tried to tear this City apart before and they have never succeeded.
“A very small minority of people have tried to use this as an opportunity to stir up hate, but once again we stand together in calm defiance. We will not allow them to divide us.”
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Anti Terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321.