Police keeping ‘open mind’ about motive for attack
Jessica Murray
Police have said they are keeping an “open mind” about the circumstances around today’s attack, which has left three people dead.
The force also confirmed that one man was in hospital in a critical condition after the attacker attempted to run over three people in a van. The other two victims suffered minor injuries.
No one else is being sought in connection with the incident and police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder who remains in police custody.
Chief constable Kate Meynell said counter-terror police were involved in the investigation, though that does not necessarily mean the attack is terror-related.
In a newly released statement, Meynell said:
This is a tragic series of events which has led to the lives of three innocent people being taken and left another member of the public in a critical condition in hospital.
My thoughts are with all the families affected by this shocking incident, and we will be working extremely hard to understand exactly what has happened.
We are at the early stages of the investigation and need to determine the motives behind these attacks and will keep the public updated as soon as we are able to say more.
We are keeping an open mind as we investigate the circumstances surrounding these incidents and are working alongside counter-terrorism policing to establish the facts – as we would normally do in these types of circumstances.
We do have a man in custody who has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Currently, we do not believe there is anyone else involved in this incident.
It is safe to go into the city centre but there are a number of streets that will remain closed including Ilkeston Road, Magdala Street, Milton Street and Maple Street. This is so officers can gather evidence in order to understand what has happened.
Key events
Hours after the attacks, the sequence of events remains unclear
Vikram Dodd
Police believe the first two people they found at around 4am were stabbed. A witness also told the BBC they saw two people being attacked with a knife. Postmortems will determine the cause of death.
The sequence of the attacks, hours after they took place across an area of over a mile and a half, remain unclear.
At some point a van was obtained by the suspect – believed not to be owned by him – and used to drive into three people. They are being treated in hospital, and a mile from that scene a white van is visible with dents to the bonnet and damage to its window.
Hours after the string of attacks, armed police have been involved in raids across the city as the police investigation chases down leads and hunts for evidence.
People living in Bentinck Road have said they saw police drag a man out of a white van at about 5.30am. Demi Ojolow, a student, has told the PA news agency:
I just saw the police shouting at him to get out of the car and get on the floor. And they dragged him out of the car and he just fell on the floor. He was still pretty wrestling at the point. They dragged him away and that was about it.
Ojolow said police were pointing some kind of weapons at the man, but she was not sure whether they were Tasers or firearms. Nor did she know whether or not the man from the van was armed. Asked what the police shouted, she said: “Get out of the car and get on the floor.”
Another Bentinck Road resident, Dimitrious Lawani, told PA:
Two of [the police officers] were holding what seemed to me to be a Taser. The other one seemed quite a bit bigger than a Taser. I’m not sure what that one was.
Lawani, also a student, said he arrived at the scene just as the man was being pulled out of the van.
There’s two of them pulling him and two behind pointing at him – I think those were Tasers.
He said they shouted: “Get down, get out, stop fighting.” Lawani said:
He was being quite resistive – very resistive from what I could tell – and he was also making a lot of noise but I couldn’t really distinguish what he was saying. Once he was on the floor and the shouting calmed down, I went back to sleep.
His friend, Grace Mambi, said:
It was the police shouting ‘get down’, screaming ‘get down’. That’s the loudest I’ve heard police in my life.
Police guarding property close to where two people were killed
Jessica Murray
Police officers are guarding a property at 209 Ilkeston Road, about 400 yards from where two people were killed in Nottingham outside university halls of residence.
Armed police raided the property this afternoon, kicking down the front door to gain access.
At Xclusive Hair Studio barbers next door, Mohammed Qasim said the property had been raided by police last year, but he believed it was empty, and a sold sign had been put up recently.
Further up the street, police entered another property and escorted out two young women, who left in a police car.
The area is predominately occupied by students, many of whom said they were shaken by what happened.
“I was woken up to a phone call from my mum asking if I was OK,” said Joey Buckingham, a Nottingham Trent student.
“I think people are scared and worried in case something similar happens again. It was very close to university accommodation. But most students have gone home for summer now; I’d say only about 20% are still here.”
Helen Pidd
Petra Gyuricska and her husband, Miklos Toldi, said they were among the first to discover the body of a man on Magdala Road at 4.30am. They were heading to her workplace when they saw the man lying on his side outside Magdala Tennis Club. Gyuricska told the Guardian:
I was just leaving for work … my husband gave me a lift, and then we were leaving and we saw the body lying … on the floor, and then we saw the blood and I just told my husband to stop.
I tried to call 999 but I couldn’t get connection. Someone else came as well – [in] another car – and he called.
Gyuricska said she believed he had already died by the time they found him. She told the Guardian:
We stayed … first a police car came, and then another two police cars came, and then an ambulance came. The police, they started CPR but it was too late. I mean, you could just see.
The couple struggled to estimate the man’s age, but agreed he was probably older than 50 years. Toldi said he was dressed in “working clothes” and Gyuricska described him as white.
Speaking to the same broadcaster, she has added:
I just got off the bus with around 40 other people and we were walking along Market Square to catch our next bus, crossed over the road at Theatre Royal and got around 10ft down the road when all of a sudden we heard a bang which sounded like a vehicle hitting a bollard.
I turned around and then saw the two people on the floor, on the road. Someone was screaming. I think a gentleman ran over to help as well.
The police were there straight away, then the ambulance arrived and they got the two people in the ambulance and got them sent off to whichever hospital.
Another witness in Nottingham has described the moment she saw a man and a woman hit by a van, with her account tallying largely with that given in respect of the same incident by Lynn Haggitt (see 11.09am).
Frances, who did not publicly give her surname, told Sky News she was on her way to work and was near Theatre Royal in the city centre when she saw the van hit the two people.
There was a male and a female. The female, she could speak. She was in pain from the impact of hitting the ground. She had hit her head but was still able to speak.
Then the gentleman as well took the full brunt of the van and he had head injuries but was still awake. He didn’t lose consciousness, he was still awake at that stage.
Armed police officers, some wearing balaclavas, have been seen on Ilkeston Road, a few hundred yards above the main cordon, the PA news agency reports.
Police appeared to enter a commercial property on the street, with two young women eventually put in the back of a marked car. Several unmarked police vehicles carrying armed officers then left, after the section of the road was cordoned off.
Paul Scruton
Here’s a map showing where the incidents we know of so far happened:
We reported earlier that a van was being guarded by police on a street to the north-west of Nottingham city centre (see 11.46am). A little more detail from the PA news agency, which says that – viewed from the other side of the cordon – the van has clear damage to its bonnet and windscreen.
There are two dents on the bonnet, just above the radiator grille, and two sets of corresponding cracks radiating out from two points on the windscreen, the agency reports.
Residents gathered at the cordon said they were disturbed by shouting just before 5.30am, but that this was not unusual because the street is home to several drug rehabilitation establishments.
A witness has told the BBC he saw a young man and young woman being stabbed on Ilkeston Road, close to the junction with Bright Street in Nottingham, at about 4am.
The man, who did not give his name, told the broadcaster he heard “awful, bloodcurdling screams” and looked out his window to see a “black guy dressed all in black with a hood and rucksack grappling with some people”.
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. 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. I’d say it all happened within five or six minutes.
The man said he called the police, who arrived within five minutes, before paramedics tried to revive the pair for 40 minutes.
Two police patrol cars were parked inside a cordon near the TK Maxx store on Milton Street, with armed police present, the PA news agency reports.
An adjacent cordon stretching several hundred metres along Mansfield Road was also in place, in the direction of the fatality in Magdala Road. A person who entered the Milton Street cordon shorty before 11.30am was taken to the ground by police officers near a McDonald’s restaurant, before being carried to a police van and driven away.
The area around a white Vauxhall Vivaro van left on a street to the north-west of Nottingham city centre has been cordoned off, the PA news agency reports.
The van had been left a short distance from the pavement, with its passenger door open, and what looked like a black bag on the road near the door. Police were guarding the cordon by a convenience store. However, they were staying clear of the vehicle, with no forensic activity evidently under way.
Kane Brady, a student at the University of Nottingham, told GB News he saw a knife being taken from a white van after a man was arrested outside his house on the street.
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 city’s two professional football clubs, Nottingham Forest and Notts County, have reacted to the incident. The former has tweeted:
We are devastated to learn the news of the horrific events that took place in Nottingham this morning. The thoughts of everyone at #NFFC are with the friends and families of those who have tragically lost their lives and to everyone affected by this incident.
We are devastated to learn the news of the horrific events that took place in Nottingham this morning.
The thoughts of everyone at #NFFC are with the friends and families of those who have tragically lost their lives and to everyone affected by this incident. https://t.co/1ygwoLDBpV
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) June 13, 2023
The latter said the news was “devastating”.
How have you been affected?
Rachel Obordo
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What do we know so far?
Here’s a quick roundup of the substantial updates we’ve had:
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Three people have been found dead in Nottingham, in what police described as a “horrific and tragic incident”
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A 31-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after two people were found dead in the street in Ilkeston Road just after 4am on Tuesday. A third man was found dead in Magdala Road, Nottinghamshire police said
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Another three people are in hospital after someone tried to run them over in a van in Milton Street, in what police believe was a connected incident
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Counter-terror police are helping with the investigation, though this does not necessarily mean the incident is believed to be an act of terrorism
Police cordoned off around 400 yards of the scene at Ilkeston Road with tape, and what appeared to be medical kit was scattered across the road.
The PA news agency reports that two forensic officers arrived and appeared to spend the majority of their time at a bathroom and plumbing business called Willbond. The forensic officers eventually left the scene on foot with a black crate and large plastic bag.
A witness, Lynn Haggitt, has said she saw a van hitting two people in Nottingham. She told Channel 4 News:
At half past five, I saw a van pull up at the side of me. It was white, all white. There was a police car behind it coming up slowly, no flashing lights. The man in the driver’s seat looked in his mirror and saw the police car behind him.
She said the white van then drove up to “the corner of the street and went into two people”.
The lady ended up on the kerb, and then he backed up the white van and he went, speeded up Parliament Street with the police cars following him.
Asked if the people hit were hurt badly, she said a man appeared to have a head injury. “They did get him to his feet,” she added, and said of the woman who was hit: “She was sitting up on the kerb, to me she looked OK”.
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