‘Awful, blood-curdling screams’: How Nottingham attack unfolded

Residents in Nottingham in the UK had been struggling to sleep anyway because of the heat.

With their windows open they couldn’t help but hear the blood-curdling screams.

A young woman repeatedly shouted for help as she watched a male friend being stabbed and slashed by a knifeman dressed all in black. It is understood two of the victims are university students.

The attacker then turned to the woman, killing her as well.

At 4am on Tuesday, before the break of dawn and as partygoers headed for their beds, two people lay dead in the middle of one of the main roads out of Nottingham, in an area that is home to much of the city’s sizeable student population.

The murders were not the end of it.

At some stage, as the horror unfolded, the killer is said to have jumped into a van and then crashed it into pedestrians in the city centre about an hour after the attacks.

In a suburb just north of the city, another corpse was found.

Three seemingly innocent people were murdered and three others injured after the rampaging attack that prompted police to lock down large swathes of the city.

Armed police would finally arrest a man at 5.30am in a street close to Nottingham’s centre, video footage showing him being pulled from a white Vauxhall van.

Police are keeping an open mind and have not ruled out terrorism as a motive for the attack.

An eyewitness has spoken of his alarm as he watched the stabbings from his bedroom window.

“Being a hot night, I had the window open and I just heard some awful, blood-curdling screams,” said the eyewitness, who wished to remain anonymous.

“It’s often quite busy with people coming back from town and you get the usual boyfriend-girlfriend arguments, so I thought it was something like that.”

The reality was grim. On Ilkeston Road, close to the junction with Bright Street, a violent, bloody fight was taking place right in the centre of the street.

“I looked out of the window,” continued the eyewitness, “and saw a black guy dressed all in black with a hood and rucksack grappling with some people. It was a girl, and a man or boy she was with – they looked quite young.

“She was screaming ‘Help!’ I just wish I’d shouted something out of the window to unnerve the assailant.

“I saw him stab the lad first and then the woman. It was repeated stabbing – four or five times. The lad collapsed in the middle of the road.

“The girl stumbled towards a house and didn’t move. The next minute she had disappeared down the side of a house, and that’s where they found her.”

It’s unclear how long the fight lasted. The eyewitness suggested “it all happened within five or six minutes”.

Two bodies lay in the street and the knifeman was gone. “The attacker then just walked off up Ilkeston Road towards town, as calm as anything,” said the eyewitness.

He called 999 and police arrived at the scene within minutes. Paramedics, he said, spent about 40 minutes trying to revive the pair but to no avail.

“It was a horrific thing to witness. I’m in bits here,” he said.

What happened next is not certain; the order of events remains unclear.

In a statement, Nottingham police said officers “were called to Ilkeston Road just after 4am where two people were found dead in the street”.

It went on: “Officers were then called to another incident in Milton Street where a van had attempted to run over three people. They are currently being treated in hospital.”

And then a third murder.

“A man has also been found dead in Magdala Road,” the statement added.

In Magdala Road, two miles from the scene of the stabbing and about an hour later, the attacker claimed his third victim. By now the knifeman had begun driving around the city in a nine-year old white Vauxhall van while the police conducted a frantic search.

In the leafy, well-to-do street, residents thought a bomb had gone off after the van crashed into a pedestrian, killing the innocent bystander.

A large section of Magdala Road remained sealed off on Tuesday at the junction with Lucknow Road and The Point.

Bibi Gorbutt, whose apartment overlooks the street, close to the spot sealed off by police, told The Telegraph how she was woken by an “incredible” noise in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“At about five or five thirty, I heard an incredible bang. I thought it was a bomb. It woke me up, it was so loud,” said Ms Gorbutt, adding: “I was scared to go out, but I went to my balcony and looked out and I could hear lots of noise, like people running.

“I’ve lived here since 1968 and it’s always been a wonderfully quiet street and what happened has left me scared.

“When I looked out again at 7am the police had arrived and had sealed off the road.”

By now, of course, police were desperately searching for the suspect.

The manhunt was on, and with it the race to stop what appeared to be a killing spree.

It is thought that shortly after the murder in Magdala Road, the van was driven to the city centre.

In and around Milton Street, a little more than a five minute drive from Magdala Road, the van was spotted by a police car – but too late to prevent three pedestrians being hit by the vehicle.

They would later be treated at hospital and survive their injuries.

Lynn Haggitt, who works at a local B&Q store, watched in horror. “It was half past five and I saw a white van pull up by the side of me.

There was a police car behind it which came up slowly, no flashing lights,” recounted Ms Haggitt, “The man in the driver’s seat looked in his mirror and saw the police car behind it. The white van then backed up on the corner of the street and went into two people.”

She added: “The lady ended up on the kerb then he backed up the van and sped up Parliament Street with the police cars following him.”

Ms Haggitt said the van appeared to have gone “straight into” the two pedestrians.

“He didn’t bother to turn, he just went back, straight into them,” she said, adding: “The man got on his feet, with head wounds. Amazingly enough he got up and waited for the ambulance.

“The woman was sitting on the kerb. I was there for 15 minutes and there was no ambulance. The policeman started first aid.”

Mrs Haggit described the van driver as having dreadlocks and a beard and wearing a hat.

The chase was now on. The van would finally come to a halt in Bentinck Road, about a mile and a half from Milton Street. The arrest was captured on video by a resident in a flat overlooking the street.

Armed police surrounded the van and eyewitnesses thought they even heard gunshots as the man was dragged from the vehicle and handcuffed just as dawn broke over Nottingham.

Kane Brady, a student at the University of Nottingham, told GB News that he saw a knife being taken from the van after the arrest outside his house.

Mr Brady said: “We woke up to shouts of ‘armed police’ and what ... sounded like some very loud noises, what sounded like gunshots – it was that loud.

“I looked out the bedroom window and saw Tasers. I saw a man being dragged out [of the van] and pinned to the floor.

“I saw him getting arrested, him trying to resist.

“I then later saw when they opened the van, I saw a large knife being pulled out and then straight away that’s when police closed off both roads, both Maples Street and Bentinck Road.”

The footage showed clear damage to the van’s bonnet and windscreen: two dents on the bonnet, just above the radiator grille, and two sets of corresponding cracks radiating out from two points on the windscreen.

Residents who gathered at the cordon said they were disturbed by shouting just before 5.30am but insisted this was not unusual.

The truth was that this was out of the ordinary. A day when violence and terror struck Nottingham.

A 31-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody; his motive uncertain.

A house on Ilkeston Road was raided at just before 1pm on Tuesday by counter-terror armed officers seeking clues, seeking an explanation for the attacks.

The raid took place close to where the two young people had been killed nine hours earlier. About a dozen officers, armed with assault rifles and sidearms and wearing full body armour, searched the house.

On their uniforms emblazoned on the back read “CTSFO”, short for counter terrorist specialist firearms officer.

Chief Constable Kate Meynell pleaded for patience and tried to calm fraying nerves. “This is an horrific and tragic incident which has claimed the lives of three people,” said the police chief.

She added: “We believe these three incidents are all linked and we have a man in custody.

“This investigation is at its early stages and a team of detectives is working to establish exactly what has happened.

“We ask the public to be patient while inquiries continue. At this time, a number of roads in the city will remain closed as this investigation progresses.”