MP still ‘haunted’ by death of PC Palmer

The minister who tended to a mortally wounded police officer at the climax of the Westminster Bridge attack has described how the killing still “haunts” him.

Tobias Ellwood was hailed a hero for rushing to the side of fallen constable Keith Palmer after a knife-wielding jihadist stormed the Parliamentary estate last March.

Khalid Masood murdered five people during the rampage, including the 48- year- old officer, whom he stabbed at the Palace of Westminster’s gates.

A picture of the defence minister – his face mottled with blood – trying to save the dying PC Palmer was one of the day’s defining images.

Nearly a year since the attack, the MP said he was plagued by the fear that he could have done more. He told The Sunday Times: “He was alive when I arrived on the scene. That’s what haunts me... when I arrived he was alive and there was a pulse and when I left there wasn’t.

“I didn’t succeed that day and I have to live with that every day.”

Mr Ellwood had already experienced the tragic consequences of terrorism, having lost his brother, Jon, in the 2002 Bali bombing.

On March 22, the horror unfolded closer to home, just yards from his place of work.

Masood had accelerated through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before darting to the carriage gates of Parliament, armed with knives.

Here he encountered PC Palmer and dealt him a knife wound to the neck and torso.