Original subtitles

We meet in this courtyard today

to remember the events of Thursday, the 7th of July.

Each of us standing here today

have our own thoughts and memories of that awful moment...

...when the noise of the explosion faded

and the reality of the situation hit our consciousness.

Just wait there for a second. Put your bag on the floor, please.

In 2005, I was a firearms officer.

After 7/7, everybody was on edge.

You can't put into words how scared people were.

Especially as a firearms officer, you were just waiting for that call.

There was a feeling of almost a war footing,

and people were jumpy.

It was a war on terror.

I felt it had come home to roost, really, with that.

I think everybody was on tenterhooks.

They were all kind of waiting for the next thing to happen.

It's not normally a one-off. There's normally a series of these things.

It had been two weeks since the events of 7/7.

I was a firefighter, and my son was just six weeks old.

It was a normal thing of a young family.

Chaotic, I suppose.

So, I was traveling to work outside of the rush hour,

and we were just rattling along on the Northern Line.

We pulled into Stockwell Station.

Mind the gap.

I didn't notice anyone untoward.

There was a baby, and the baby was being a bit raucous.

I have no distinct memory of him prior to the... to the bang.

He was nondescript.

He was, you know, a very ordinary-looking young man,

who you would pass on the street and not think twice about at all.

Once the smoke started to clear, I could distinctly see him.

He was screaming.

I thought he was in pain. I said, "Look, I can help you."

He was frightened.

I thought, "I'm dealing with someone who's scared, who needs help."

But, no, he didn't-- he didn't want my help.

His demeanor became really quite aggressive.

He's now threatening to kill me.

But as I got as close as I am to you now,

I could then see on the floor the remnants of his rucksack.

So I said, "What the fuck is that? You tell me what that is."

"I wanna know what that is now."

He says, "This is wrong."

And he points at me, and he says, "You're wrong."

And then he talks as a whole, and he says, "This is all wrong."

And what's on the floor is this, um, mass of yellow foam

that's popping and fizzing.

Within it, I can quite clearly see nuts and bolts, and nails.

The point of realization is a terrifying one

because, suddenly, you've-- He's not just a young man.

Um, this is someone who's trying to kill us.

A sense of panic, wanting to run away, and then not having anywhere to go.

This thing on the floor is trying to explode.

It's right next to me.

And I'm all on my own. Um, that's-- that's terrifying.

That's when I pull the alarm, and that's when the train slows.

He swore at me again.

He certainly kicked the doors a number of times.

There was a long, pregnant pause.

Then all of a sudden, the doors open......they open.

I call out after him, "Stop him! Stop him!" But he was gone.

The first thing I did was phone my wife and say, "Hello."

And it's a ridiculous conversation.

"I think something's happened. I think someone's tried to kill me."

She said, "Actually, I'm watching the news,

and it's happening again all over London."

"They're doing it again. It must've happened to you."

"They're trying to blow London up again."

To break you some news,

we're getting reports of a reported series of incidents

on what may be the tube system, uh, we are told.

Warren Street, which is, uh, on the Victoria line,

in the north of London.

The Oval, of course, down to the south of London.

And Shepherd's Bush out to the west.

Everybody, get out the road!

Can we have you all move towards the Central Line, please?

I'm going to interrupt you, Joe, getting news that emergency services say

they're responding to reports of an incident on a bus in Hackney Road.

Have to ask you to move back. Can't explain why at the moment,

but if you bear with me, move back as quickly as possible.

A man was carrying a rucksack. The rucksack suddenly exploded.

I just had this smell, this terrible smell.

Start moving back now, please.

Thank you very much...

And we've been stopped in Oval and asked to leave the train.

We just saw lots of people run into our carriage.

By that time, we were pulling into Warren Street Station.

Keep moving!

There was a general panic. Everyone was panicking.

I knew it was a bomb, and I said my prayers.

- Seeing four incidents... - Yes.

North, south, west, and east.

Two weeks on, and once again, large sections of London being evacuated.

Inevitably, this time, there will be early questions

about security and about intelligence.

For sure, our anxiety was there would be other attacks

that would come.

It's just in the nature of these things, and other people think,

"We can multiply the pain," as it were, "on the country by further attacks."

So we gave a lot of credibility to the possibility of this threat.

And I think,

to be fair to the security services, they put a huge amount of effort

into making sure that... that those attacks were prevented.

But it's in the nature of these things

that there's a limit to how much you're able to do.

That, I'm afraid, is a common and uncomfortable feeling in MI5,

that you will know enough to be anxious and worried

that something is coming, but not enough to stop it.

Terrorism can often be imitated.

People are inspired by something

and try and copy it.

I was concerned whether my service, and indeed the police,

and indeed the British public,

could tolerate that sort of tempo of attempted attacks.

One of my colleagues knocked on the door, came into the room,

and just said, "It looks like there's been a number of further attacks."

Sort of bore very similar hallmarks to what had happened on the 7th of July.

There had been four incidents.

One on an underground train near the Oval.

One at Warren Street.

One on an Underground train, albeit above ground, at Shepherd's Bush.

And then on a bus out in Hackney.

And early accounts describe the individuals

who were clearly carrying the devices.

It just felt very similar to the 7th of July.

A minor explosion, but enough to blow open the rucksack,

and the man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong.

But it was apparent from the very outset

that they hadn't detonated,

and it did not look as if anyone had been killed or injured.

The four suspects of these four attacks had failed and fled the scene.

Um, reports of someone seen running away.

Uh, those sniffer dogs that arrived here

are not down in the Underground, as you perhaps might expect.

They're actually out here in the open.

They're looking for someone above ground,

not necessarily below-ground at this stage.

I was day shift, travelling along the South Bank,

when the call came in, and it was like,

"Shit. Here we go again."

There's four bombers now, on the loose.

This is real. This is happening.

And now we need to step up and do what we can.

The terrorist has an objective to detonate his device

and to kill as many people as possible.

If they haven't met that objective, then they're twice as dangerous,

because what are they gonna do next?

They know that we're gonna be looking for them.

They've got nothing else to lose.

Certainly, the concern was that nobody really knew what was in the playbook

of a failed suicide bomber.

The reports coming in that armed police

have actually entered, uh, UCL Hospital.

This is near Warren Street tube station.

Police asking staff to look out for a male, Black,

possibly Asian appearance,

with a blue top and a hole in the rear of the top

with wires protruding from it,

uh, which is rather alarming.

We were also aware that the 7th of July bombers had small,

homemade explosive devices in the Nissan Micra at Luton station.

Almost to have in readiness had they failed in their attack.

I think the greatest concern at that early stage

was that the guys on the run

would make a plan B up on the hoof.

They would just mount another attack.

The person who was believed to be the Oval bomber

was sighted crossing Westminster Bridge.

Information we had at the time was that it was a Asian male,

dark clothing, and had a rucksack.

We had hundreds of calls following 7/7 who matched that description.

And nine times out of ten, they're innocent.

Just going to school, college, work.

But this person was then sighted going on to Downing Street.

This person had been seen at the exact locations where

a terrorist or a bomber would want to target

to inflict maximum damage.

He's an immediate threat to the people around him,

an immediate threat potentially to the Prime Minister at the time,

and he's a threat to us.

This is game on. This is who we're after.

Okay, guys, back, please!

Hello. Please move back around the corner!

When we got onto Downing Street,

a male was sighted on the southern pavement.

Can you move back, please, folks?

Keep moving back further, mate. Move back.

Undo your shirt.

I can remember him ditching the rucksack,

and I'm fixated on his hands.

Move back down the pavement.

Back to Parliament Square, please.

He starts unbuttoning his shirt.

And we see the chest is clean-shaven.

Part of our training was to recognize somebody

who had prepared to martyr themselves, and that is to cleanse their body.

We could see there was no suicide vest there,

but threat's still there.

Could he have something else concealed with him? Absolutely.

Police have actually drawn their weapons

at the end of Downing Street, where that protective gate is.

They've actually taken aim at something. We're not quite sure what that is.

I was scared.

Everyone was scared.

We know the police had been issued with this instruction

to aim for the head.

If he makes a sudden move, I may need to pull the trigger.

And that means taking a critical shot to the head to stop him.

Keep moving as quick as you can, please.

If you cut the head off a snake, it can't bite you.

Keep going, please.

I don't want to kill that person. I don't want to take somebody's life.

But if I have to, that's what I've signed up to do.

This is the end of Downing Street.

Of course, inside, you saw the pictures,

there are journalists waiting to hear from the Prime Minister.

But here are these security officials, armed to the teeth there, aren't they?

They're at the end,

and a man is being led away quite clearly, as you can see.

- Back to Parliament Square! - Move back, please!

Back to Parliament Square! Come on, move.

Further back, please!

He was innocent.

The next person I dealt with was innocent,

and the person after that, and the person after that.

But there was never a sigh of relief.

We didn't have time.

It was literally, move on.

Because they were still out there, still out on the streets of London.

No suggestion, of course, that individual's connected

with any of these events. Police taking no chances with the alert.

The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary,

the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, all in Downing Street

for this news conference that we're expecting fairly shortly.

As Prime Minister, you have security.

Of course you worry about your family.

But you're not likely to be in a situation

where you're just left without any protection,

so my main worry was that there was people

who wanted to cause deep, profound harm to our country, and to our people.

Okay, they killed over 50 people on July the 7th.

If they could've killed over 500, they would've.

Or 5,000, they would've.

Right, good afternoon, everyone, and, uh...

a warm welcome to Prime Minister John Howard from Australia.

I hope you'll forgive me if I say to you, it's best for operational details

to go to the police and the emergency services

and others that can give you the information.

Um...

We can't minimize incidents such as this,

because they have been serious in the four different places, as we know.

Um, I think all I'd like to say is this that...

We know why these things are done. They're done to scare people

and to frighten them, to make them anxious and worried.

My overriding memory of 21/7 is that that was the moment

that I started to feel quite scared.

It just suddenly felt like it wasn't a one-off,

that it could happen again.

It started to make me question

if this was something we were gonna keep on dealing with,

how that was gonna impact our way of life,

but also, again, you know, being British Muslim,

what the implications of that.

The way of defeating it is to defeat it, of course, by security measures,

but also by going after the ideas of these people,

this evil, bankrupt ideology based on a perversion of Islam.

And the best way of doing that is to show how the values of freedom

and tolerance and respect for people of other religions and races,

is the best way to lead our lives.

The other aspect, we were getting reports

of armed police

at University College Hospital, quite close to Warren Street, of course.

Let's just bring you some pictures now we're receiving

as police search people in the area.

Step back for me, please.

I mean, I always identified as Muslim, and I was really proud to be Muslim,

but, all of a sudden, it was like the lines were drawn.

No.

Your name identified who you were.

How you looked identified how you were treated.

Anybody who was Muslim, or even, like, looked a bit Muslim.

Reports someone had been seen running away

from Warren Street tube station. Male, Black, possibly Asian appearance.

And of course, you know, like everybody else in the world,

Muslims were wanting to be able to be safe,

walking on the streets, not to be victims of these awful attacks.

But we actually had another burden placed on us as well of suspicion,

of racism, and, um, a lot of discrimination.

Police had him pinned to the wall.

Um, I would say he's a Pakistani guy.

And apparently the rumor was,

there was another one upstairs, hiding in a cupboard.

We had to strike that balance

between making sure we didn't end up with the Muslim community

feeling that it was being targeted as a whole,

but, on the other hand, responding to what was a genuine,

and perfectly justifiable, anxiety in the broader community

that there was a problem, and we had to deal with it.

Police released him, a victim, he said, of appearances.

I'm like everyone, you know?

- Thanks a lot, sir. - All right.

Have a good day. Bye.

You know, the profiling that was going on at the time,

it just felt that we were building to this point

where, at some point, it would go too far.

I was quite recently into the counter-terrorism world,

and I suppose people saw me as the guy

who was brought in to deal with proactivity around counter-terrorism,

manhunt-style activity, so if we had to find people quickly.

I was responsible for identifying them, locating them, and bringing them in.

There's a whole machine that comes into action.

We're doing lots of CCTV trawling to capture who may have been in the area.

To track back where they may have come from,

and to take forward where they may have gone.

Securing any intelligence,

using all the sensitive and secret techniques that we have

before they could put right whatever went wrong with these devices.

We had no idea at the time if they were just another cell

within a larger organization or a completely independent group.

And the starting point for that is you need a starting point.

It's a manhunt for who?

The role of MI5 at this stage is to support and help the police

to the best of our ability.

We're looking at all our coverage of people on our radar.

We know of people, regularly know of people,

without knowing what they're going to do.

And people who don't appear to be a threat,

overnight, become one.

And unless you're watching them at that moment,

you may not detect that transition.

It's a question of finding and connecting that intelligence.

This is a, as you'd expect, a 24-hour operation.

People working through the night...

I'm pushing people to do more and more and more

and get more information

to understand where these failed suicide bombers are.

Once the scenes had all been declared safe by the explosives officers,

the crime scene investigators had begun their searches of the scene.

Our forensic officers recovered some items, including photographs,

and a gym membership card from the rucksack

that had been left behind at Shepherd's Bush.

A critical breakthrough.

We got a call in the very early hours of the morning.

And under the Terrorism Act,

two CID officers asked us to attend the premises.

We were very concerned.

We opened the club.

We turned the computers on in the dead of night.

They wanted to get a visual and a positive ID on a member,

Hussain Osman.

They were asking what type of person he was.

He was polite, pleasant to members of staff.

He was known by members of staff by name.

Hussain Osman seemed like any other normal member,

and that's why it was so shocking for everyone when we found out.

Why didn't we know there was something wrong with that individual?

He was so under-the-radar.

They wanted to have an ID of Hussain Osman and his address from our system.

We confirmed that the address was 21 Scotia Road.

In 2005, I was a surveillance operative at SO12 Special Branch.

It was dedicated surveillance working against counter-terrorism subjects.

Following people, in layman's terms.

We were briefed around 7:45.

As part of our briefing, we were shown a photographic pack

with a subject whose code name was Nettle Tip.

Believed to be Hussain Osman, the failed Shepherd's Bush suicide bomber.

We were shown an image of him, a photocopy of a gym membership card.

It was a grainy image, of poor quality.

Our briefing was expedited. Rushed, almost.

But the stakes were high, we knew that.

We knew that it was important we get out there and look for these people.

The Grey Team, we made our way,

and we sat off from the address in South London.

21 Scotia Road, I believed, was a single address, an address.

The address where either the failed suicide bombers,

or associates of failed suicide bombers,

were potentially residing.

Elsewhere, the firearms teams were briefed separately.

The morning of 22/7...

we were told, "Today, you may be called upon to use unusual tactics."

And I think someone said, "What do you mean, like a critical shot?"

And he said, "All I'll say is don't question anything you're told,

because you will not have the full picture."

They gave us already-loaded, fresh magazines

with hollow-point ammunition.

We were told that some of the devices could be small, like a suicide vest.

It could be a belt with a bomb in it.

It could be a coffee jar size that could go in a pocket.

When we left there,

we were under no illusion how dangerous these bombers were.

We were told they were highly motivated, determined, and deadly.

It was the first full day of the manhunt.

It's hard now to actually convey properly

how much activity is going on,

how much intelligence we're trying to live-feed into the control room.

We're deploying surveillance teams, firearms teams, investigators,

all covertly deployed so not to come to notice of anybody,

because these individuals most likely would've had some sort of,

um,

homemade explosives with them.

The consequences of not getting this right were not lost on me.

The overarching plan

was that those in the address would be dealt with on the street,

to negate an incident similar to Madrid the previous year,

where an entry was made into a bomb factory...

...and the location ended up exploding.

I was sat on the outer cordon.

The observation van's on an inner cordon,

using a handheld camcorder to capture video of persons leaving the address.

We hear on the radio...

But, at that time, the operative deployed in that vehicle

had some difficulties in maintaining surveillance.

He was having a pee.

For whatever reason, there had been some sort of cock-up in the OP van.

Normally, they would've had a good opportunity to take a photograph,

which they then could've probably compared to a photograph of the subject

and could've said there and then if it was or wasn't him.

We were waiting at barracks,

and we're hearing this over the radio channel in the car.

We were told we would only be used

if one of the subjects was identified as one of the bombers.

There was a designated senior officer, who was Cressida Dick.

And the silver commander was Jon Boutcher.

I then heard...

Can someone do a walk-by?

I jumped out of the vehicle

and walked on the opposite side of the footpath.

I looked at him, and I made the assessment that,

based on the image that I'd been shown in the briefing,

which is our one and only image,

I couldn't say yes or no at that stage.

It was all a bit rushed. We were catching up.

And at that time, there was no direction from the control room.

When he got on a bus, it's like, "Oh my God, it's a whole new ballgame."

"Why-- why did we let him get on a bus?"

My initial thoughts were, "Damn, that's now gonna be tricky."

"We need to get someone on the bus as soon as possible."

One of my colleagues boards the bus.

So that operator has to be very careful about how he conducts himself.

There's a huge risk here.

The person is not carrying a rucksack,

but that didn't necessarily mean we viewed him as less of a threat.

My colleague on the bus made reference to the subject having distinctive eyes,

almost Mongolian-looking.

They said to us to...

They wanted us nearby in case they decided that we needed to intervene.

It was quite tense in that car. We had several radio systems.

So it was quite chaotic.

I was working with C2, the operator in the car,

working all the radios.

He was talking to control.

He probably had 101 things going on in his head.

I have never spoken about this publicly.

This'll probably be the only time that I'll talk about it,

rather than take it to my grave.

The difficulty with this operation was we had to answer to someone senior.

The control room were in touch, but there were very limited instructions.

The male begins to make his way towards Brixton Underground station.

When he arrives, he pauses,

and then looks to make his way back towards the same bus

that he had just stepped out of.

And of course, this is being spoken about on the radio.

And it sounds like odd behavior.

One of the things it could mean

is that he was practicing a thing called anti-surveillance,

where you draw people who are following you off of a vehicle,

and then you go back, and you see who follows you back on.

It was looking more and more likely that this was the subject.

Over the radio, he was described as edgy.

In my head, I kept thinking, "It's escalating."

At some point, I felt that it was going down the road that we'd have to intervene.

The team leader in the car expresses his personal opinion that,

you know, for what it's worth, he thinks it's him.

But at no point throughout the surveillance

was a positive or negative confirmation made around the identification.

All of us heard at some point during that follow, "Yes, it's him."

The subject crosses the road

and crosses into Stockwell Underground Station,

which happens to be the point of entry

for the failed bombers from the day before.

We're now in a... a danger zone

because we know that when we go down onto the platforms and the trains,

the radios will not work.

My colleague said...

Hoping that he would then get authority to arrest him.

I see him pick up a copy of the Metro and then move towards the barriers.

And my colleague and I follow.

He must be challenged before getting down the tube. Stop him!

Commander Dick gave the order for us to carry out the stop.

But that was unbeknown to us because

we'd already moved inside the station, and our radios didn't work in there.

The next thing I heard from our control vehicle was,

"He must not be allowed to get on that train."

"Do not let him get on that train."

They want us to stop the subject getting on.

State red, 19. SO19 doing stop.

My thoughts were, "He's identified. That's him."

I knew he was at least a minute,

maybe two minutes, ahead of me, so I had to run.

I'm thinking, "I cannot believe we've allowed this situation to develop."

We've allowed someone we believe is a suicide bomber into the tube network,

could have a device on him, and he could initiate that device.

It was a nightmare scenario because we all knew we'd lose radio comms,

and we'd be on our own.

My only way in was to leap over the barrier.

I remember chasing down the escalator steps.

I drew my weapon, and I put it behind my back.

C2 and C12 were in front of me.

We weren't shouting "armed police." We were covert until compromised.

The surveillance officer indicated who the subject was.

A lot of our training had been around the danger from hands.

Being able to connect a battery or detonate a device.

Secure the hands.

So my colleague moved towards him and wrapped his arms around him.

The surveillance officer pinned his arms to the side.

I was convinced that we were about to die.

I had a responsibility, and I feared the very worst.

I fired, and so did my colleague, Charlie 12.

And I kept firing until I was absolutely certain

there was no further threat.

Good morning. Welcome to a BBC News special.

There is now a major security alert at Stockwell tube station in South London.

If anything, time had slowed down.

I could not believe what had just happened.

To be frank, I was numb with shock,

because of the horror of what had occurred.

But there was a relief that we were still standing,

and we had stopped an attack.

Stay with us.

Uh, we're gonna go over to Stockwell now.

An eyewitness who saw the incident

at Stockwell, he's on the line.

One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol

in his left hand.

They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him.

I saw it.

- Was he dead or alive? - He's dead. Five shots.

Seriously, he's dead.

The first thought when the gunshot rang out was,

"We're all gonna blow up."

I thought, "This is it, it's an explosion. We're gonna die."

And then...

a fraction of a second later, I thought, "We're still here?"

It was a strange feeling.

I felt kind of euphoric. It was a weird,

you know, this adrenaline feeling of, like, "We've survived."

But there was no, sort of, celebration or anything.

It was just... we knew we'd taken a life. It was-- It's a horrible thing, you know.

I felt for both the officers, C2 and C12,

you know, what you've had to do.

I could not wait to get off the tube, away from that scene.

I remember leaving in an unmarked police car.

You can see on your screen there, a live shot

of the situation outside Stockwell tube station.

We know that police were operating a shoot-to-kill policy,

and I think in most cases that would be a shot to the head.

There was just lots of shooting, and then a man...

A man near the door in our carriage was just pushed to the ground and shot.

This is, at the end of the day, or it looks like, hot pursuit,

and that is a plus for us.

These are our security forces hunting these people down.

That is a good thing.

And appear to have pinpointed them, and appear to be acting decisively.

Yeah, I remember it so clearly.

I was in a café.

On the radio, it said that a man had been shot at Stockwell,

in connection with the bombings.

I wasn't shocked.

As news of the shooting became public,

Muslim leaders said they were concerned

that there's a shoot-to-kill policy in operation.

They could've shot him in the leg, got him to a side and questioned him.

But they've shot him dead, what are they gonna find from him?

This is South London.

Within the community, there was a sense of knowing that the police can overstep,

and target you because of race.

There was a fear that, you know, this could escalate.

We've had a number of phone calls today

from just ordinary British Muslims who are feeling very jumpy, very nervous.

There may be good reasons

why the police felt it necessary to shoot this man dead,

but they do need to make clear what those reasons were.

The explosives officer arrived.

He went on the carriage, checked him over quickly,

and said, "There's no devices."

We laid him on the ground so that I could check for vital signs.

He'd found a wallet, and it had some ID in it.

We are looking for four extremely dangerous men.

It may be that the police have found one of them.

The name on the ID was Jean Charles Menezes.

It wasn't the name of the subject,

so along with the fact that he didn't have any device on him,

things just didn't seem to add up to me at that time.

I didn't wanna say-- I didn't say this to anybody because...

I didn't wanna start rumors,

because I wasn't sure, but in the back of my mind,

I just started to feel something wasn't right.