London Bridge attack emergency services worked exceptionally, inquest told

The officer in overall command of the emergency services’ response on the night of the London Bridge attacks has told the inquest they performed exceptionally in what was “a war zone on the streets of London”.

Three assailants killed eight people and seriously injured 48 on the night of 3 June 2017 before being shot dead.

The delay in London Ambulance staff attending to some of the most seriously injured has come under scrutiny during the inquest. But Supt Ross McKibbin of the Metropolitan police, who was in charge of all three emergency services on the night, said on Monday that they were faced with an array of confused information from hundreds of unverified reports.

He told the Old Bailey: “In the context of what was effectively a war zone on the streets of London … they [the emergency services] have done exceptionally well.”

He added: “At the time, it was increasingly confusing and becoming more confusing because the public were panicking … all of the noises made the public fearful of a sustained attack and of course they were calling the police and telling us they were under sustained gunfire.”

The inquest has previously heard that police officers treating people who had been stabbed in the courtyard outside Boro Bistro below street level waited in vain for medical help from paramedics. McKibbin said it was normal for paramedics not to go into or remain in a “hot zone”, where terrorists were believed to still be on the loose, and said emergency service workers had different appetites for risk.

There have also been concerns raised that the police officers were not made aware that there were ambulances stationed at street level further south on Borough High Street and so delayed taking the casualties up to get help. McKibbin said currently the technology did not allow police officers to discern where ambulances were, only police vehicles. He accepted that “there’s always learning that comes from these incidents”.

Among the erroneous reports that came in from the public were that a woman had been shot, that a man with a machete was running towards Vauxhall and people believing they were under fire from the terrorists, who had already been shot dead by that stage.

McKibbin said he believed the latter were as a result of people hearing stun grenades, which police used as they searched all premises.

Those who died were Chrissy Archibald, 30, from Canada; Sébastien Bélanger, 36, a chef; Kirsty Boden, 28, a nurse from Australia; Ignacio Echeverría Miralles De Imperial, 39, a Spanish financial analyst; James McMullan, 32, from Brent, north-west London; Alexandre Pigeard, 26, a French restaurant worker; Xavier Thomas, 45, a French national; and Sara Zelenak, 21, an Australian national.

The inquest continues.