Beach Massacre Hero: Killer Showed 'No Emotion'

A British man shot three times as he shielded his fiancee in the Tunisian beach attack has told how he came face-to-face with the killer who showed "no emotion".

Matthew James, 30, was rubbing suntan oil into his partner Saera Wilson's back in the resort of Sousse when gunman Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire on another couple.

Rezgui killed 38 holidaymakers in the terror attack, including 30 Britons, just over a week ago.

Speaking in detail for the first time about the shooting, Mr James recalled how he threw himself on top of 26-year-old Miss Wilson to protect her before he was hit by the first bullet.

He said: "When I heard the first shot I reacted without thinking. I remember grabbing Saera, turning her around and falling on top of her.

"That's when I was shot. It didn't hurt at first. It was a strange feeling and I said to Saera, 'Jesus, I have been shot'."

He was then shot two more times in his stomach and chest, missing vital organs by millimetres.

"I was angry and panicking. I was lying facing Saera under the sunbed. I said, 'Babe, babe, I'm going to die'," he said.

"That's when I told her to tell the kids I loved them and that she had to get away for them. I didn't want her to go but I knew they needed to have one parent at least."

Mr James told the Sunday Mirror: "There was no emotion in [the killer's] face. He looked like a postman going about his business but instead of delivering letters he was strolling around shooting people.

"He had the gun in his hand and was kicking the sunbeds up, then shooting people hiding underneath. He was making sure they were dead, firing three shots at a time."

As his fiancee ran to safety at the nearby Belle Vue hotel, she could hear the gunshots getting closer so she and three fellow tourists hid in a broom cupboard on the second floor.

With wounds to his shoulder, chest and hip, Mr James eventually managed to reach the Imperial Hotel as Miss Wilson was searching for him among the dead being brought into the Belle Vue.

They were reunited after holiday reps told her he had been taken to hospital.

He had surgery to remove the bullets and was airlifted back to Britain.

He sustained nerve damage to his left leg and arm and is still on morphine. The couple will also both receive counselling.

The pair had left their two children, Tegan, six, and Kaden, 14 months, at home with their family when they set off to Sousse on 21 June for a two-week holiday.

A permanent memorial for the British victims of the attack is to be created, David Cameron has announced.