Journalist Geoff Ho tells how he tried to 'talk down' London Bridge terror attacker

Journalist Geoff Ho recovering in hospital after the attack

A journalist tried to talk down one of the three London Bridge terrorists, fearing they were about to detonate suicide bomb vests and: “kill us all”.

Geoff Ho, City editor of the Sunday Express, was among the victims when the IS-inspired extremists stormed into the Black and Blue steakhouse during a knife rampage through Borough Market.

He told the Old Bailey inquest the three men appeared to have suicide bombs strapped to their chests as they kicked down the restaurant door, and ringleader Khuram Butt shouted: “Everyone lie on the f***ing floor”.

“He walked right towards me and repeated his instruction to lie down on the floor, lie down on the f***in g floor”, he said.

“I said ‘no, you don’t have to do this’ and then I started walking backwards.

Journalist Geoff Ho was among those injured in the London Bridge terror attack
PA

“I thought if I rushed him he may detonate and kill us all, the only thing I could do is talk to him and hopefully he would go away.

“If I lay down on the floor, either on my back or front, I would be dead.”

Mr Ho said Butt, 27, and fellow terrorists Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, “moved as a pack”, describing them as walking “slowly, deliberately - predatory movement. It was like they were stalking someone.”

Emergency services tending to the wounded after the June 3 attack
PA

CCTV showed the moment another customer Roy Larner, later dubbed the “Lion of London Bridge”, tussled with one of the terrorists as Butt closed in on Mr Ho.

The journalist said he came face-to-face with Butt, telling the inquest: “He was like an animal, he just wanted to kill people. There was rage, the eyes were full of rage, murderous rage.”

Asked how he said the words, Mr Ho said: “He spat them out, forcefully, with venom.”

The journalist said Butt “lunged” at him and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck, and then left him bleeding on the floor as the attackers went in search of more victims.

Another customer, Gavin Joseph, said he heard the men shout “get down, get down, we’ve got bombs” as they burst into the steakhouse, and he saw one of them shaking his vest.

He added that one of the terrorists who stabbed him was “smirking” and looked “quite angry, smug almost”.

Mr Joseph and Mr Ho both took refuge in the staff room after the attack until the emergency services arrived.

The inquest also heard today from Elliot’s Café worker Candice Hedge, who described hiding her customers in the cellar to save them from the rampaging extremists.

Ms Hedge said she was unable to reach the safety of the cellar herself, and was stabbed as she crouched behind a booth.

“They were shouting, I can’t remember what exactly, but something along the lines of they weren’t happy with the way we were living our lives”, she said.

“One of the men, I just saw him come down on another customer that was trying to get to the stairwell, striking him twice in the back.

“The one standing closest to me turned around as if to leave and then he saw me. He immediately came down with the knife on to me.”

Butt, Redouane, and Zaghba, killed eight people and injured 48 others during the attack on June 3 2017 before being shot dead by police.

The inquest into the victims, Kirsty Boden, 28, Xavier Thomas, 45, Chrissy Archibald, 30, Sara Zelenak, 21, James McMullan, 32, Sebastien Belanger, 36, Ignacio Echeverria, 39, and Alexandre Pigeard, continues.

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