I walked into my office on the fifth floor of Scotland Yard at a quarter to
eight, flicked on Sky News and pulled out my files on the Olympic bid,
turning quickly to the chapter on security.
Had we really said we could do all this? Scotland Yard was already at full
stretch.
A few minutes later one of my deputies, Suzanna Becks, knocked on the door and
entered without waiting for an answer. “Andy, there’s a fire on the
Underground.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Looks like Liverpool Street or Aldgate. Circle Line.”
I sensed her anxiety: “Thanks — get the response team organised. When you know
more come back.”
At five past nine on July 7 2005, Suzanna was back again: “Two more fires —
Circle Line at Edgware Road and Piccadilly Line near King’s Cross.” On the
TV, Martin Brunt, Sky’s crime correspondent, had the news too.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch,
joined us. Uniformed officers were already at the three scenes, sealing off
the areas, helping fire and ambulance crews. Peter had detectives and
forensic science teams ready and had arranged for our major investigation
team to gather at Aldgate.
Other officers were checking the status of current surveillance operations to
ensure that there was nothing linked with the movements of known suspects.
The regular overnight intelligence reports revealed nothing. This was a
complete bolt from nowhere, our worst-case scenario.
At 9.10am our internal e-mail system was describing the fires as explosions.
On the secure “Brent” phone, I contacted MI5, and GCHQ, the government’s
communications centre, where they monitor suspects and spies here and
abroad.
The atmosphere in Scotland Yard was electric. From the basement to the highest
floors people were in action. I worked my way mentally up the building.
Second floor: all major event/public-order people — dispatched. Fifth floor:
Suzanna and me pulling the strings. Eighth floor: the Commissioner — must
see him in person. Thirteenth floor: media — need to get accurate
information to the public. Fourteenth and fifteenth floors: Anti-Terrorist
Branch — working out what to do right now to prevent further attacks today
in London. Sixteenth to eighteenth floors: Special Branch — intelligence to
aid the investigation.
But we still didn’t know exactly what we were up against. Like everyone else,
we were frantic for clarity. I knew we’d never get accurate information at
that early stage but as Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations you
are not allowed to be over-inhibited or too cautious because you’ve got to
do something. At the same time, you must not overreact.
By 9.40am Peter Clarke was telling me there were heavy casualties. Then came
the explosion on the No.30 bus in Tavistock Square. Now we pushed the
terrorism button hard. We were clearly witnessing a wave of attacks. We had
trained for this — but were we up to scratch? Why hadn’t we had an inkling
that this was imminent? My mind was racing.
Firearms units were called in, the intelligence agencies asked to search back
through intelligence reports to see if they’d missed anything, forensics
teams despatched and hospitals warned to prepare for the worst.
At 9.50am, there was a call from Downing Street: “Ten minutes to Cobra.” I
would have to go to the crisis committee, brief ministers face to face and
admit I didn’t know exactly what was happening.
We had to assume there’d be more bombs and that they could go off anywhere in
the country. We put ports and airports on standby to check who was leaving.
Later we’d check who’d recently come in. Peter sent officers to talk with
colleagues at MI5, to start working backwards, looking at past intelligence
as well as evidence we began gathering now, to find out who was responsible.
There were thousands, if not millions, of hours of CCTV footage to get hold
of from across London and elsewhere. There must surely be pictures of the
killers just before the bombs were detonated.
There were moments that morning when I felt I was not truly in charge. People
were asking, “What you got, then?” and I couldn’t answer because I didn’t
know — yet it was my job to know. Imagine what it’s like to tell the
commissioner or the Secretary of State, as I would have to, “I don’t know
what’s going on”. It makes you feel inept. But you’ve got to stick to it: if
you don’t know, you’ve got to say you don’t know.
I had to give my boss, Sir Ian Blair, the heads-up on what was happening.
“I’m sorry but I have bad news, Ian,” I said. “I think we’re in the middle of
a wave of terrorist attacks — and they’re co-ordinated. I can’t confirm this
but I do think the bus bomb implies it. It looks as if it’s the type of
scenario we’ve been preparing for. I can’t tell you exact locations apart
from the bus. I can’t tell you what’s caused the explosions. I can’t tell
you anything about the bombers. But I want you to start thinking we’re
hosting a sustained terrorist attack.”
Ian’s style was “need to know”. He wanted the overview but, I believe, in the
first instance, not necessarily the detail. I remember how shocked he was.
We agreed I would go to Cobra and brief the government in person while he
would go on television.
We also discussed communications — finding out what was happening underground
was clearly a major issue. Unbelievably, our radios weren’t compatible with
the systems used by the other emergency services.
Mobiles were overloaded, so the ACCOLC (Access Overload Control) system was
invoked, limiting calls around Aldgate station for four hours to emergency
workers with a special Sim card. We decided not to shut down the entire
mobile-phone system but many people thought it had been closed because it
was so busy.
Martin, my driver, was waiting to take me to Cobra. London was gridlocked so
Martin went for it through the jam. I held firm to the FM internal-grip
handles — so called because when you’re the passenger in an emergency
vehicle with blue flashing lights on, you invariably think, “F*** me”.
Some time after 10am I walked into the Cabinet Office, handed over my mobile
and was ushered through a series of doors and down a flight of stairs into
the basement.
Tony Blair was at the G8 meeting at Gleneagles so the meeting was chaired by
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary. Most senior ministers were there, plus
Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, and John Scarlett, head of MI6.
I couldn’t deal in fact. “There’s a lot of confusion,” I said. “We can’t be
100 per cent sure how many fatalities there are. All our responders are
there, and once everyone’s out my team will focus on preserving the
evidence.”
In a meeting later that morning I had a tense exchange with Patricia Hewitt,
the Health Secretary. Charles Clarke was anxious to establish how many
scenes we had — was there one, five or ten?
By this time I knew there were four: Aldgate, Edgware Road, King’s Cross and
Tavistock Square. “We have four scenes,” I piped up.
Patricia Hewitt challenged this. “I’m sorry, Home Secretary, I don’t think
that’s an accurate report. I am being told there are at least six or even
seven or eight scenes.”
It really mattered that we got this right. If we sent emergency rescuers to
eight places we’d be spreading our resources too thin. I was absolutely sure
there were only four.
“Sorry, I disagree with you. I believe there are only four — you’re Secretary
of State for Health,” I ventured.
By 10.45am I was back at my desk viewing the latest information — hundreds
were injured; the injuries bore the hallmarks of bomb attacks; many were
still trapped underground. There had been no warnings.
At 11am, Ian Blair was on television. He declared London closed but tried to
give a measured message: “The situation has been very confused but is now
coming under control.” I wished I shared his confidence. We had no idea
whether or not it was over.
Peter Clarke and I checked the Rainbow List — our counter-terrorist list of
tactical options. Red stood for Highways, Orange was the Bomb Squad, Maroon
meant covert policing.
Light Blue, Purple and Green covered aviation, maritime and railways. Should
we close the Gatwick or Heathrow Express or the Channel Tunnel? Dark Blue —
searches, a massive operation was under way and CCTV footage was pouring
into the Yard and we had teams looking through every frame. Light Green was
VIP protection. Finally, there was Yellow: high-visibility policing — doing
what we could to calm the public.
Our investigators in Tavistock Square reported that, from the positioning of
the bodies and the damage to the bus, a device had been detonated by a
suicide bomber.
It was now early afternoon and, amazingly, London was slowly beginning to move
again. Thousands of Londoners were walking home. No complaints, no riots,
just quiet stoicism.
At four, just over seven hours after the first attacks, I was summoned to
another Cobra meeting, this time chaired by Tony Blair. He walked in,
grave-faced, and the room fell silent. He set us all in one strategic
direction, rallying everyone in the room, setting out priorities. To his
right he had the security chiefs — the heads of MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and officers
from Military Defence and JTAC. To his left his secretaries of state and the
police.
First he took a situation report from the intelligence chiefs. They said
honestly that they were aware of no intelligence that had predicted today’s
events. I told the Prime Minister that early scientific analysis suggested
that this was the work of suicide bombers, but I was adamant we should keep
an open mind so we didn’t miss anything.
It may sound insensitive and callous, but as the bodies were removed, our
forensic science teams paid most attention at first to those we suspected
might have been the bombers. We needed to identify them fast to track any
accomplices and check links to any other potential terrorists. The meeting
agreed a forward deployment for the military at RAF Northolt, just to the
west of London — a little standby army in case we needed extra help At
10.19pm the family of one Hasib Hussain reported him missing. An hour and a
half later a police exhibits officer, who was putting together documents and
possessions found near the bombs, phoned the Anti-Terrorist Branch with a
number of names identified on cards and personal items. Among them were gym
membership cards that bore the names Sidique Khan and Mr S. Tanweer. The
proximity of these cards to the rucksacks that we believed had contained the
bombs meant we immediately suspected they were those of the bombers.
I looked at the list of casualties. Hundreds of injured had been treated and
gone home. There were 99 people still in hospital; eight were, sadly, not
expected to live. The number of confirmed dead was 37. There were 14 trains
still stuck in tunnels. Ahead lay a huge investigation but I knew the team
and I would not lack motivation.
• Read the second extract from Andy Hayman’s new book on Monday
