How Westminster terror attack unfolded

This is how events unfolded in the Westminster attack:
Ambulances on Westminster Bridge, London after policeman has been stabbed and his apparent attacker shot by officers in a major security incident at the Houses of Parliament.Ambulances on Westminster Bridge, London after policeman has been stabbed and his apparent attacker shot by officers in a major security incident at the Houses of Parliament.
Ambulances on Westminster Bridge, London after policeman has been stabbed and his apparent attacker shot by officers in a major security incident at the Houses of Parliament.

:: Emergency services are called at 2.40pm to an incident in the area of Parliament Square. It emerges that an attacker, armed with two large knives, mowed down pedestrians with his car on Westminster Bridge, including schoolchildren, then rushed at the gates in front of the Houses of Parliament, stabbing a policeman before being shot dead by other officers.

:: MPs are told the chamber would “remain in lockdown” until further notice and business is suspended.

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:: At around 3.30pm Scotland Yard says the attack is being treated “as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise”.

:: The first death is confirmed after 4pm when a junior doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital says one woman has died and a number of others have been hurt - including some with ‘’catastrophic’’ injuries.

:: Before 4.50pm, Commander BJ Harrington of the Metropolitan Police says there are ‘’a number of casualties’’ in the attack ‘’including police officers’’.

:: London Ambulance Service say before 5pm that at least 10 patients were treated on Westminster Bridge and a number of hospitals are on alert.

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:: Before 5.40pm, sources say a police officer stabbed at the Houses of Parliament has died.

:: At about 6pm, Scotland Yard’s top anti-terror officer Mark Rowley confirms four people were killed, including the police officer who was stabbed and his attacker.

:: Before 6.45pm, a spokesman for 10 Downing Street says Prime Minister Theresa May will shortly chair a meeting of the Government’s emergency Cobra committee to discuss the immediate response to the incident in which at least 20 other people were injured. She orders flags to be lowered to half mast over Downing Street as a mark of respect to the innocent people who lost their lives, and a spokesman says she is being kept updated about the investigation.

The attack took place in the middle of the day, at a time when Westminster was heaving with witnesses.

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Rick Longley saw a man lunge and stab a policeman after a car ploughed into pedestrians.

Fighting back tears, he told the Press Association: “We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out.

“They were just laying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben.

“A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman.

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“I have never seen anything like that. I just can’t believe what I just saw.”

Others who saw what happened took to social media to post pictures, videos and accounts.

Radoslaw Sikorski posted a video to Twitter purporting to show people lying injured in the road on Westminster Bridge.

The senior fellow at Harvard Centre for European Studies said he saw at least five people lying on the ground after being “mown down” by a car.

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“I heard what I thought was just a collision and then I looked through the window of the taxi and saw someone down, obviously in great distress,” he told the BBC.

“Then I saw a second person down, and I started filming, then I saw three more people down, one of them bleeding profusely.”

Witness Quentin Letts said he saw a man in black attack a police officer outside Parliament before being shot two or three times as he tried to storm into the House of Commons.

“I saw a thick-set man in black clothes come through the gates into New Palace Yard, just below Big Ben,” he told the BBC.

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“He had something in his hand, it looked like a stick of some sort, and he was challenged by a couple of policemen in yellow jackets.

“And one of the yellow-jacketed policemen fell down and we could see the man in black moving his arm in a way that suggested he was stabbing or striking the yellow-jacketed policeman.”

The other officer ran to get help and the man in black ran about 15 yards towards the entrance, he said.

He added: “As this attacker was running towards the entrance two plain-clothed guys with guns shouted at him what sounded like a warning, he ignored it and they shot two or three times and he fell.”

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Steve Voake, 55, was walking across the Westminster Bridge towards the South Bank when he saw the aftermath.

He said he saw at least two bodies lying on the road and one in the water.

“I saw a trainer lying in the road and when I looked more closely I saw that there were a couple of bodies the other side of the road,” he told the Press Association.

“And when I looked over the side there was another body lying in the water with blood all around it.”

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He said he first became aware of the incident when he was about halfway across the bridge.

Bradford Buck, from Connecticut in the US, saw the incident unfolding and took cover with his wife.

He said: “Police cars just kept coming one after another after another, I’ve never seen such a quick response. Then a little bit later the helicopter came.

“My wife and I came up from Westminster Underground, we walked across to Parliament and there was a car crashed into the gate there.

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“Police officers were running with machine guns, and there was a man down right next to the car.”

Fearing for their safety, Mr Buck and his wife sheltered behind some concrete, before police moved them to safety.

Lord Brian Paddick said there was a “suspect package” outside Parliament which police had to deal with before the building could be evacuated.