EYEWITNESS REPORTS: "It was absolute mayhem I saw them unload five shots into this person lying on the floor. I saw them kill a man. I saw them shoot a man five times."
With those words "totally distraught" eyewitness Mark Whitby described how one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of British policing ended in the killing of a suspected suicide bomber aboard the Underground at Stockwell Tube station in south London yesterday morning.
"I saw the gun being fired into the guy - he is dead," Mr Whitby assured BBC News, as an air of disbelief attended what was plainly an intelligence-led manhunt, possibly by special forces, less than 24 hours after Thursday's unsuccessful terror strike on the capital's transport network.
Travelling into town for a meeting with his boss, Mr Whitby was reading a newspaper as his train pulled in to Stockwell station. He heard a lot of noise, people saying "get down, get down" and then saw "an Asian guy" running on to the train hotly pursued by what he knew or took to be three plain-clothed police officers. "As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified," said Mr Whitby.
While some other witnesses had the man already on the train and standing upright before shots were heard, Mr Whitby said he "sort of tripped" before the pursuing officers pushed him to the ground: "One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him."
Mr Whitby said the dead man "looked like a Pakistani" and was wearing a blue baseball cap and quite a thick jacket: "It was a coat like you would wear in winter, a sort of padded jacket. Maybe he had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked out of place."
Londoner Dan Copeland was also in the carriage in which the shooting occurred. "We were sitting for a few minutes on the platform, then we heard shouting from the concourse between the two platforms. Then the man burst in through the door to my right and grabbed hold of the pole and a person by the glass partition near the door, diagonally opposite me," he said.
An officer then jumped on and screamed to everyone to get out: "People just froze in their seats cowering for a few seconds and then leapt up. As I turned out the door I heard four dull bangs. I ran past an armed officer who was standing on the platform and up the stairs."
Passenger Alison Bowditch heard the sound of gunfire before the order to get off the train. "Somebody definitely went to the ground and as they went to the ground I heard gunfire and assumed they had been shot," she said.
Brionie Coetsee (23) told the Press Association: "We were on the tube when we suddenly heard someone say 'get out, get out' and then we heard gunshots, someone was shooting. Somebody in plain clothes who I thought was a civilian cop had his gun out and started shooting and told us to get out."
Chris Wells, a 28-year-old company manager, was travelling on the Victoria line towards Vauxhall when he left the train at Stockwell. He saw about 20 officers, some armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers as police gave chase: "There were at least 20 of them and they were carrying big black guns. The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers chasing him and everyone was just shouting 'get out, get out'."
Journalist Chris Martin was waiting on the northbound platform and a train pulled in as he heard several men burst on to the platform about 20 yards away.
"There was a lot of shouting, some sort of altercation was going on, and then they came flying on to the platform and these guys just threw this man into the open doors of the train. Then I heard shots, I thought it was three but someone else said five. It sounded like a silencer gun going off, and then there was blind panic."