Westminster Parliament attack: Witnesses describe chaos as car ploughs into pedestrians and policeman stabbed

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

Witnesses have described scenes of chaos after a police officer was stabbed and a suspect was shot outside the Houses of Parliament after an alleged terror attack.

Approximately 12 pedestrians were also mowed down by a car on Westminster Bridge.

One woman has died and a number of others, including the police officer, have been hurt, according to a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital. Some were described as having "catastrophic'' and "life-changing" injuries.

Van driver Mitchell Spree, 27, told The Independent he was driving along Embankment when he saw people being evacuated from nearby buildings.

He said: "Then we pulled on to the bridge. A lady was laying at the entrance to the bridge. There was about five more people.

"She was crying. She was speaking to the paramedic. I don't know what the others were like. The police asked us to leave our van. It's still on the bridge. It's shocking."

A second witness, Tawhid Tanim, told The Independent he heard three shots - "bang, bang, bang" - some 10 or 15 metres from the Caffe Nero coffee bar where he was waiting for friends.

He said: "It was so loud. People were running like crazy."

He saw the aftermath of the car striking railings outside Parliament however he could not be sure if someone, or something, was underneath.

He said: "I couldn't see it properly. I started running.”

Police officers told the crowds to "just keep running," he said.

Witness Rick Longley said he saw a man stab a policeman outside Britain's Parliament.

"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," he said.

"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.

"I have never seen anything like that. I just can't believe what I just saw."

Conservative MP Adam Holloway said he saw people running and immediately ran into his offices in Parliament to be with his staff. "A lot of us are locked in with our staff at the moment," he said.

“All I could hear was a loud shot, a gun shot or something, it was bang bang bang”

Early reports indicate a car, which mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge and mowed into around a dozen people, was the same vehicle which then rammed into the gates of Westminster just around the corner.

At least three gunshots were heard by those inside Westminster, and proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended as police deal with what they tentatively described as a "terrorist incident".

The deputy speaker of the Commons, David Lidington, announced the suspension in the House, saying a police officer had been stabbed and the "alleged assailant shot by armed police".