Footage taken by a passersby has revealed the sheer instinctive guts and determination of those who confronted Usman Khan in the moments after he carried out his murderous attack inside Fishmongers’ Hall.
Two men can be seen cornering the terrorist on London Bridge armed only with the nearest objects which came to hand – a five foot antique Narwhal tusk and a fire extinguisher.
A third man uses just his bare fists to help force Khan onto the ground before he is shot and killed by armed officers who arrived on the scene within minutes of him launching the attack.
It is now thought the man who used the whale tusk as an impromptu weapon to corner Khan was a Polish-born chef who had been working at Fishmongers’ Hall.
Colleagues and those attending a prisoner rehabilitation conference organised by the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University told how with barely a thought for his own safety the chef, called Lukasz, grabbed the tusk from a wall from where it had been displayed inside the hall and attempted to defend others around him from Khan.
As the fight spilled out onto London Bridge, and despite being stabbed three times by Khan, Lukasz used the tusk to prod and push him against a railing to prevent him escaping and causing further injury.
A man alongside him sprayed fire extinguisher foam over Khan to disorientate him further. Amy Coop, a director of the TV soaps Hollyoaks and Doctors who attended the event, wrote on Twitter: “A guy who was with us at Fishmongers’ Hall took a 5ft narwhal tusk from the wall and went to confront the attacker.
“You can see him standing over the man with what looks like a white pole in the video. We were trying to help victims inside but that man’s a hero.”
A colleague of Lukasz, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “Lukasz grabbed a nearby pole and ran at him, getting stabbed in the hand in the process but continued to pin him down.
“Being stabbed didn’t stop him giving him a beating. Lukasz is a hero.”
Khan is believed to have started “lashing out” in a downstairs room of the hall but was grabbed by the conference-goers and bundled out of the front door as he tried to go upstairs.
Also involved in the brave attempts to pin down and disarm Khan in the moments before the armed offices arrived was an off-duty British Transport Police Officer.
He managed to wrestle one of Khan’s two knives from him and – holding it with care so as not to contaminate any fingerprints or DNA on the weapon – moved away from the scene so that it was out of reach.