London workers 'verbally abused police at Westminster terror attack cordon'

Londoners hurled vile slurs at police who were working at the scene of yesterday's terror attack, it has been claimed.

Scotland Yard officers were labelled "jobsworth", "Nazi scum" and "fa[s]cist", according to claims made by police working in the aftermath of the attack at Parliament.

A Treasury official was even among those who abused police officers, it is claimed.

According to a Met officer, the man tried to barge his way through a cordon stating he was "very important" and "need[ed] to get through".

The police officer wrote anonymously on Twitter: "On #Westminster cordons today.... amazing that the tourists, were the ones who were polite and understanding.... the local office workers were the rude ones!

"Been called ‘a jobsworth’ ‘Nazi scum’ and ‘a facist (sic)’. All because the road was closed. #PoliceFamily," he added.

He followed up to say the person who called him a "bloody fa[s]cist]" had told him: "I work at the Treasury in a very important role, I’m not just a member of the public. I need to get through."

Tweets by the man from previous weeks show images from police weapons seizures and references to "#officerproblems". The Met told the Standard they could not comment as the Twitter account does not belong to them.

The claims came as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick praised police officers for their quick response to the "ghastly" crash at the Houses of Parliament at about 7.40am on Tuesday.

Witnesses told how emergency services arrived almost instantly after more than a dozen cyclists were hit in a chilling echo of Khalid Masood's rampage that killed five people at Westminster 17 months ago.

This morning, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan gave credit to the police, saying London is "one of the safest global cities in the world".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think what it shows is that the planning, the practice, the preparation, that the police, the security services, the emergency services do, should give us some confidence that we are one of the safest global cities in the world.

"I say that realising that terrorists are trying to cause damage, trying to kill people in not just London and Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Boston, New York, Istanbul and elsewhere around the world.

"We've got to carry on evolving and finding new ways to keep ourselves (safe), just like the terrorists and bad guys are finding new ways to cause us damage."

Londoners yesterday told of their horror as the silver Ford Fiesta veered into a column of cyclists, who tried to leap to safety to the left and right.

Kirsty Moseley, of Brixton, south London, was a passenger in the first car behind the "wall" of up to 12 cyclists hit at what she estimated was 25mph.

"He went straight through them. People were thrown everywhere," the 31-year-old said.

"(He had) two hands on the steering wheel and he did not look back over his shoulder to look at the damage he'd created - he was just looking deadpan straight in front of him," she added.

Geoffrey Woodman, from Battersea, south-west London, had stopped at the traffic lights by Parliament Square on his cycle to work when the car swerved into cyclists and towards the security barriers.

"I was getting off the bike and put my foot down, then there was a sound like tyres screeching," he said.

"This car turned round to the left and swerved into the wrong lane of traffic and into the bank where all the cyclists wait."

29-year-old Salid Khater has been arrested on suspicion of preparing an act of terror.

The Treasury declined to comment.