Fishmongers' Hall: Terror attacker shouted 'I'm going to blow you all up'

A former prisoner sprayed a fire extinguisher to try and stop a terror attacker who was shouting he would "blow you all up", an inquest heard.

John Crilly described how he tackled Usman Khan, who was armed with knives and what appeared to be a suicide belt.

Khan killed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones and attacked others at Fishmongers' Hall on 29 November 2019.

Another witness said he thought "everyone was dead" after later hearing what he thought was the belt exploding.

Mr Crilly, who attended a prisoner education conference at the venue, was one of three men who tried to tackle Khan, another of them armed with a narwhal tusk taken from inside.

He knew Jack Merritt through the Learning Together programme.

Recalling the moment he came face to face with an armed Khan inside the building, he said: "He had two big knives on his hands, there was no missing them."

The inquests into the deaths of Ms Jones, 23, and Mr Merritt, 25, heard Mr Crilly describe Khan as "shouting and jumping about like a loon. He was going nuts, shouting Allahu Akbar".

"As I got closer I could see the [suicide] belt, pretty clearly. Like a black bodybuilder-belt with bits stuck to it, bits of iron, bits of silver, a contraption," he said.

Answering Jonathan Hough QC, counsel to the inquiry, Mr Crilly described how he tried to "distract" Khan and "call his bluff".

"I was hoping it [the belt] was fake. He started shouting and saying things like: 'I'm going to blow you all up,' so I said 'blow it then'.

"He said, 'I'm waiting for the police'."

Mr Crilly said he tried without success to stop Khan using a series of makeshift weapons including an ornamental chair, before he picked up a fire extinguisher to tackle the armed suspect.

He continued: "I just sprayed him with it, it seemed to have an effect on him - like, blinded him.

"He started running through the foam so I thought I'd have to back off and spray him again."

Mr Crilly was among the three men who followed as Khan went outside onto London Bridge.

"He looked back and would try and stab one of us. The three of us would be swapping places," he said.

He described how he first hit Khan in the head with the extinguisher and then "grabbed his hands and tried to wrestle the knife off him".

Darryn Frost, a communications manager within the Prison and Probation Service, was also at the event and told the jury hearing "screams" was his "call to action".

He said he grabbed a narwhal tusk from the wall and ran towards another delegate, Steve Gallant, who appeared to be trying to keep Khan "at bay" with "an old mahogany chair".

He explained how after he hit Khan in the stomach with the tusk, he passed it to Mr Gallant and went to grab another one before chasing the terrorist out of the hall.

Once on London Bridge, Mr Frost again struck the attacker with the tusk as he, Mr Crilly and Mr Gallant, fought with Khan.

"As he ran towards me I thrust it into him. I don't think he expected to be struck by this. The force of it made him kind of buckle over," he said.

He described how Mr Crilly then used the fire extinguisher again and an unarmed Mr Gallant forced Khan to the ground.

"I dropped the narwhal tusk and jumped onto the assailant," he explained.

Mr Frost told the inquests when police arrived and told people to leave Khan, he continued to hold him down as he did not want him to be shot.

He said police again shouted for him to run away but "they didn't know how he had a bomb and that he had threatened to set it off when police arrived, so I refused to move. I wouldn't leave Khan alone."

Once he had finally been pulled away by an officer Mr Frost said he "three cracks and an echo", which he thought was the bomb going off.

"I thought then that everyone was dead," he said.

Mr Gallant, then an inmate at HMP Springhill, told the inquests Khan had "moved towards me, pulled back his coat, and showed me his bomb.

"It looked fake, I chose to ignore it," he said.

He described how he first used a narwhal tusk to "whack" the terrorist and then hurled a chair.

Once on London Bridge, Mr Gallant said he "somehow" managed to grab Khan and hold him to the ground.

The former prisoner added he "waited for my moment" to let go of Khan once police had arrived.

"I heard some shots. And then I turned and I saw Usman,

"I thought I had seen him reach to his belt or the middle of his body, try to get up, then he was shot again and Tasered," he said.

The inquests continue.