Westminster attack inquests: Families say police and security services made key failings
The lack of armed officers at the main gate where Masood attacked and the absence of vehicle barriers have all been criticised.
Wednesday 3 October 2018 04:55, UK
Families of those caught up in the Westminster terrorist attack believe more could have been done by the authorities to prevent the tragedy.
During weeks of often harrowing evidence at the inquests, legal representatives of the five people who died and the dozens of others who were injured, pointed to what they claimed were several key failings by police and security services.
The hearing at the Old Bailey is drawing to a close on Wednesday, with several interim conclusions likely to be made by Judge Mark Lucraft QC, the chief coroner.
The inquests revealed much about the lives of those who died, about the events that led to their deaths, but also raised questions about whether some things, if done differently, might, have helped prevent the tragedy.
Terrorist Khalid Masood used a 4x4 Hyundai to plough through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge on 22 March last year, before running to the Houses of Parliament and stabbing to death police officer Keith Palmer.
Masood was shot dead by a police close protection officer.
Counsel for PC Palmer's family criticised a decision by senior officers not to put armed officers at the main gate where Masood attacked. Instead, they were encouraged to carry out roving patrols in the general area.
Dominic Adamson, representing the officer's widow, said his murder was "entirely predictable".
The hearing was told how PC Lee Ashby and PC Nicholas Sanders, the armed officers on patrol at the time of the attack, had not been near Carriage Gates, where Mr Palmer was stationed, for nearly an hour before Masood struck.
This was despite official guidelines that said they should be "in close proximity" to the gates when they were open.
Mr Adamson accused senior officers of trying to "pass the buck".
He said: "The Metropolitan Police has failed to identify the fact that its armed officers were not doing what they were supposed to do.
"And to this day it has failed to properly acknowledge the failings that it was responsible for in allowing that state of affairs to persist."
The security services were also questioned about whether they could have done more to stop Khalid Masood before he carried out his attack.
He had been investigated as a potential extremist in 2010, but the first trace of him in their records dates back to April 2004.
The inquest heard his phone number appeared in the contact list of someone known to Operation Crevice, which smashed a plot to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub and a Kent's Bluewater shopping centre, in April 2004.
At the time, Masood was living in Crawley, West Sussex, which was the epicentre of the investigation that prevented what was then the biggest terrorist plot in Britain.
He appeared on MI5's radar again six years later as a potential facilitator for extremists travelling to Pakistan through Saudi Arabia.
An MI5 officer, known only as witness L gave evidence at the hearing, revealing that Masood was designated as an MI5 "subject of interest" (SOI).
By the end of the year, investigators decided he was not a threat and he was removed from the live SOI list.
Over the next four years he intermittently popped up as a contact of people involved in the banned network once headed by the hate preacher Anjem Choudary.
Witness L said that the atrocity could not have been stopped.
"There simply wasn't enough intelligence for us to work on that would have allowed us to identify his plot and work with the police to frustrate it," he said.
The authorities were also criticised over a lack of action to protect Westminster Bridge and other potentially vulnerable sites from a vehicle attack.
The inquests were told how those tasked with protecting so-called "crowded places" did not regard Westminster Bridge as a crowded place, despite the large numbers of tourists and others who flock there.
The Westminster attack happened just months after terrorists used vehicles as weapons in attacks in Berlin and Nice.
Despite those events, no barriers were erected on the bridge.
Senior police and Transport for London witnesses told the inquests that the bridge was seen as no more or less at risk than many other tourist attractions across the capital.
Today, barriers run the entire length of the bridge - but it took another vehicle attack to change the risk assessment.
Just days after terrorists struck on London Bridge, authorities finally began erecting barriers at several river crossings.
Whether mitigation measures might have saved some or all of the Westminster victims we can never really know for sure.
The families of those who died are clear there were failings.
Ultimately though, the blame for the deaths of their loved ones lies with one man, a violent extremist, who cared nothing for the innocent lives he took.