SO MUCH PAIN, SO MUCH LOVE
LONDON BRIDGE VICTIMS’ FAMILIES PAY TRIBUTE
LONDON BRIDGE victim Jack Merritt was the first person to confront terrorist Usman Khan, it emerged yesterday as vigils were held to honour him.
American academic Bryonn Bain told the BBC that Jack stepped forward when Khan launched his deadly attack at a prisoner rehabilitation event on Friday.
Prof Bain said it ‘felt like a warzone’, adding: ‘I saw people die, I saw things that I will never be able to unsee.’
Jack’s bravery was described after his girlfriend Leanne O’Brien broke down in tears as he was honoured at Guildhall, Cambridge.
Ms O’Brien was comforted by her own and Jack’s parents as fellow Cambridge graduate Saskia Jones was also remembered.
Mr Merritt, 25, and Ms Jones, 23, were both stabbed to death by convicted terrorist Khan, 28, during the Fishmongers’ Hall event they were supporting. At a separate vigil in Guildhall Yard, London, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn and London mayor Sadiq Khan observed a minute’s silence.
In the BBC interview, Prof Bain said that former offenders at the conference ‘stepped up and intervened’ and people owed their lives to those who had previously spent time in prison.
Meanwhile, the boss of Fishmongers’ Hall described in detail the heroism of kitchen porter Lukasz who helped stop Khan.
Former naval officer commodore Toby Williamson told the BBC: ‘Lukasz is doing the washing up. He hears this spine chilling shout. As he’s first-aid trained, he goes upstairs.
‘There’s a bad guy with knives and people fighting for their lives.’ Lukasz grabbed a ‘ long stick’, thought to be one of the hall’s whale tusk, and ran at the terrorist.
‘He’s buying time. He’s allowing others to crawl out the way,’ Mr Williamson added. During a ‘one-on-one’ fight Lukasz was stabbed five times. Khan got out of the building, with Lukasz giving chase.
Members of the public helped tackle the terrorist until police arrived and shot him dead.
BORIS JOHNSON said yesterday it was ‘probably clear from the outset’ that London Bridge killer Usman Khan should not have been released because he was ‘too tough to crack’.
The prime minister warned that some prisoners could never be de-radicalised as he joined the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and London’s mayor Sadiq Khan at the Guildhall vigil for the victims of Friday’s attack.
Killer Khan, 28, was automatically released on licence in December last year after serving half of his 16-year sentence for involvement in a 2010 plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
Promising to cut the number of terrorists allowed out of prison early, Mr Johnson said: ‘I think it was pretty obvious from the kinds of things he (Khan) was saying and continued to say that he was not really a suitable candidate for automatic early release.
‘Yet under the law, when he was sentenced, there was no means of reviewing his release – he was just sprung automatically.’ Mr Johnson, who later joined
home secretary Priti Patel on an election trip to Southampton, added it was a ‘profound question’ as to whether some terrorists could ever be rehabilitated.
‘We have to face the grim reality that in some cases it is really very difficult,’ he said. ‘There are some cases which are just too tough to crack and, alas, he appears to have been one of them.’
Mr Corbyn said the PM had ‘enormous questions’ to answer about Khan such as: ‘What happened in the prison with this particular individual? What assessment was made of his psychological condition before he was released? And what supervision and monitoring was he under after coming out?’
He added that ‘terrorists should be released as and when they have completed a significant proportion of their sentence’ and are ‘considered safe’.
Meanwhile, mayor Mr Khan called on Londoners to unite in a ‘spirit of defiance’ against terrorists, adding: ‘The best way to defeat this hatred is not by turning on one another but by focusing on the values that bind us.’