A taxi driver has told how his passenger saved lives by using her body to barricade a restaurant door in order to stop an attacker from coming in.
Aksha Patel said the woman, who was travelling with one other person in his cab, had acted as a barrier for “a few seconds”, allowing people to escape from the back entrance of the Black and Blue restaurant.
He told Sky News: “She knew they were bad people trying to break in.“ She managed to hold the door for a few seconds but they overpowered her. “People managed to escape through the rear door possibly saving a good 20 people’s lives.”
It is just one of a number of extraordinary stories emerging about ordinary people’s acts of heroism, without which the death toll from last night could have been higher.
Taxi driver says passenger used her body to protect others during London attack – video
Injured off-duty Met officer tackled terrorist - sources
The off-duty Met police officer injured during the attacks tackled one of the terrorists, sources have said. Another two people were injured during the confrontation.
Scotland Yard has confirmed that the off-duty officer, as well as a British Transport Police (BTP) officer, were injured in the attack.
Officers from the Met’s counter terrorism command have arrested 12 people in Barking in connection with last night’s attacks. In a statement, the Met said:
At 22.08hrs on Saturday, 3 June, we received reports that a white van had struck pedestrians on London Bridge. The van then drove to Borough Market where the three men left the vehicle and stabbed a number of people. The suspects were wearing what we now know to be hoax suicide vests.
Armed officers confronted the three suspects who were shot and killed in Borough Market. Seven people have died, in addition to the three attackers shot dead by police. A further 48 people were taken to hospital, some of whom are believed to be suffering serious and life-threatening injuries.
The MPS is in the process of informing next of kin and specialist officers have been deployed to provide support to families.
The Met added that among those injured in the attack are a British Transport Police officer and an off-duty Metropolitan police officer. Both remain in hospital with serious injuries but neither is believed to be in a life-threatening condition.
Police officers escort a woman to a police van after raiding a block of flats in Barking. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters
Furqan Navi, who lived in the block raided by police in Barking this morning, said he recognised his neighbour as one of the attackers lying dead in Borough Market after he had been shot by armed police.
“He lived there with his wife and two children, he’d been there for about three years. He seemed pretty friendly but I didn’t know him,” Navi said.
Another neighbour said he had seen the man two days ago. “He seemed a friendly, cool sort of guy. He was friendly and liked playing with kids. He was in his 20s I guess.”
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Lewis Bennett, 39, was a witness to the attack that took place in the Globe pub in London Bridge.
His description of events has been contradicted by other witnesses. Bennett described how the attacker, who was between 25 and 30, and clean-shaven, was dressed in a black robe and had a curved knife in his belt, which was about 1ft long.
“Everyone gasped when he ran into the pub but he didn’t do anything at first, just stood still for about 10 seconds,” said Bennett. “But then he grabbed the knife and stabbed people closest to him. He stabbed people in the stomach and legs, I think about five or six people. People started screaming and running out the back door. He was shouting ‘Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar’ and he had a British accent.
“I went to go stand in the loo and I could hear all the screaming. I came back out and he was standing there right in the centre of the pub and all the blood was dripping from his blade.”
Bennett said two policemen then came in through the back door. The attacker lunged at one of the policemen but the other knelt on the floor and fired two shots at the attacker, taking him out instantly.
“He died there on the pub floor,” said Bennett. ”The police came in and covered the body and the paramedics came in to help the people who hadn’t escaped through the back door. I think a few died but most people were still alive I think. It looked like there were about five people who were attacked. It was such a frightening ordeal, it was so frightening.”
Bennett told the Guardian he had had a drink at the time of the attack and could not remember every detail.
Barking residents have been speaking to my colleagues, Robert Booth and Matthew Taylor, about a raid on a property believed to be linked to one of the London attackers and where as many as five arrests are thought to have been made.
A neighbour, who asked not to be named, described the man who lived in a flat at the centre of the raid as a slim, bearded man in his mid-20s, married with a young child, no older than two. He is believed to be of Pakistani origin.
She told the Guardian she had recognised her neighbour as the man from a picture that circulated last night of one of the attackers lying on the ground in Borough Market after he had been shot by armed police.
Her suspicion appeared to be confirmed when she woke on Sunday morning to see police officers photographing his red Peugeot car.
“I realised it was him,” she said. “It is shocking. Everybody here has children and jobs. We never thought anyone here would have the type of mentality to do something like that. I used to see them every night, He had a wife and child and would drop them off home and would look for a parking spot.
“He never used to communicate with the women here. I just knew him as the guy that always came at a certain time and would drop his wife and kid off right close to the main door and then go.
“He never used to park where he should park. He never really looked at us and if he did he didn’t look happy as if he had a why are women out on the street at this time of the night type of look on his face.” She said he wore traditional Islamic robes and his wife wore a full-face veil.
“He used to have the beard, the long dress that men wear, sometimes white, sometimes dark-coloured,” she said.
Michael Mimbo, 25, had been getting ready for his shift as a security guard. “I heard cars screeching up the road and lots of shouting of ’get down get down’. I went outside to see what was going on and there were armed police everywhere.
“There were three people lying on the floor with guns pointed at them and I saw another one being Tasered as he tried to get away – it was chaos.” Mimbo said he had seen the man before but did not know him. He said that in all he saw five people – four men and one woman being detained.
Another neighbour, Furqan Navi, 35, said he believed the raid had centred on a ground-floor flat in the Elizabeth Fry block of flats in Barking where a family had lived for at least three years.
“There was lots and lots of shouting so I looked out of the window and there were armed police everywhere – it was most alarming.”
Officers and vehicles stand outside a block of flats that was raided by police in Barking, east London. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters
