Two tourists, a mother, a pensioner and a police officer who lost their lives in a frenzy of killing

♦three months before her death, Andreea Christea, wrote that “2017 will be the best of my life”. The 31-year-old Romanian, who was on holiday in London with her boyfriend Andrei Burnaz, was the fourth and final person hit by Khalid Masood when he drove a rented Hyundai

towards the Palace of Westminster.

In a New Year’s Eve diary entry unearthed by her family after her death, Ms Cristea wrote: “I will have a wonderful man by my side, who will love and cherish me and with this man I will start a wonderful family.”

Leslie Rhodes, who was 75, was returning to his home in Clapham from a hospital appointment at St Thomas’ when he was killed.

A retired window cleaner and cricket fan, Mr Rhodes was “a very private man” who never married.

However, Amanda Rhodes, his niece, said he was close to his nieces and nephews and “acted like a father to us”.

She added: “He would do anything to help anyone who needed it.”

Described as the “face of British policing” by a colleague, Pc Keith Palmer, was stationed, unarmed, at the Carriage Gates when Masood attacked him.

Stabbed several times, the father of one died at the scene.

Speaking at the beginning of the inquest, Angela Clark, Pc Palmer’s sister,

said: “He was always brave and took his role as a police officer seriously. He treated everyone with respect.”

Pc Nick Carlisle said his friend and colleague was popular with the “thousands of tourists” who visited every year and “must be dotted all over the world” in pictures.

Kurt Cochran, 54, and his wife Melissa, from Utah, were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in London when he was struck on Westminster Bridge – the first victim. His wife suffered serious leg injuries.

Seconds before being hit, Mr Cochran was seen on CCTV pushing his wife out of the way of Masood’s SUV, actions chief coroner Mark Lucraft QC said had undoubtedly saved her life.

Mrs Cochran said her husband was “a hero”.

“We loved being a family – all four of us,” Aysha Frade’s husband John told the inquest.

A mother of two young girls, Mrs Frade, 44, was the third person hit by Masood’s vehicle, which killed her “almost instantaneously”, the inquest heard.

Mrs Frade was walking home from work at a languages college, where she worked as an administrative assistant, when she was “cruelly and brutally taken away” from her family.

‘He was always brave and took his role as a police officer seriously. He treated everyone with respect’