Saved by playing dead
Graduate survived Fishmongers’ terror attack, despite being stabbed in neck
A UNIVERSITY graduate has told how she ‘played dead’ after being repeatedly stabbed in the neck by the Fishmongers’ Hall jihadi.
Isobel Rowbotham, 23, described seeing Usman Khan, 28, charging towards her with an 8in knife in each hand.
Giving evidence at the inquest into the atrocity yesterday, Miss Rowbotham said she shouted: ‘No, Usman, please don’t.’
When it became obvious he was intent on attacking her, she tried to ‘hunch over’ to protect herself.
Khan, a convicted terrorist, stabbed her in Fishmongers’ Hall in central London during a prisoner rehabilitation conference in November 2019.
Miss Rowbotham, who was working at the event as an office manager, fell to the floor where she was repeatedly stabbed in the neck.
She told the jury: ‘I remember his final stabs were in my neck and they were intended to finish me off. I closed my eyes. I decided to play dead. I tried to slow down my breathing and blood flow as much as possible.’
Miss Rowbotham, who studied psychology at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, tried to call 999 on her mobile phone but she could not press the screen because of all the blood. She was treated by paramedics in the building before being taken to hospital, and has made a full recovery.
Miss Rowbotham was attacked moments after Khan stabbed Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23. The two Cambridge criminology graduates, who were helping convicted criminals at the Learning Together rehabilitation programme, died minutes later. Miss Rowbotham said: ‘[Jack] was shouting that he had been stabbed. He was holding his stomach. There was a lot of blood. He was wearing a white shirt so the red blood was quite obvious. He was hunched and in a lot of pain.’ Ama Otchere, a housekeeping supervisor at Fishmongers’ Hall, told the court she became aware of a problem when she heard crying from the men’s toilet. Assuming someone was unwell, she went to investigate and was met by Khan, who was holding a finger to his mouth in a signal for her ‘not to scream’.
‘You could see the anger on his face,’ Miss Otchere said. ‘He used the knife to stab [Miss Jones’s] shoulder. The lady was screaming and I just ran.’
CCTV footage at the inquest in London’s Guildhall building showed Khan writhing on the pavement after being shot by police on London Bridge. He sits up and officers shoot him again.
The inquest continues.