First victim of London Bridge attack is named as Cambridge University worker

The first victim of the London Bridge terror attack has been named as a Cambridge University worker.

Jack Merritt, from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, and a woman were killed by Usman Khan in Friday afternoon's rampage in the heart of the capital.

Mr Merritt was a course coordinator for a prisoner rehabilitation programme that was attended by the convicted terrorist and other offenders.

His devastated father David paid tribute to him on Twitter, writing: "Jack spoke so highly of all the people he worked with & he loved his job.

"Thank you for your support. I know his colleagues are in shock- please look after each other at this terrible time."

Have you been affected by the London Bridge terror attack? Email [email protected].

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He added: "My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily.

"R.I.P. Jack: you were a beautiful spirit who always took the side of the underdog."

He also wrote that his son had been a "champion" for those who had "dealt a losing hand by life, who ended up in the prison system".

Khan, 28, knifed five people before he was tackled and disarmed by brave witnesses and then shot dead by police at point-blank range.

He was armed with two kitchen knives and wearing a fake suicide vest when he launched his attack while attending a University of Cambridge conference on prisoner rehabilitation, called Learning Together.

A source told PA that Khan started "lashing out" in a downstairs room of Fishmongers' Hall, on the north side of the bridge, but was grabbed by the conference-goers and bundled out of the front door as he tried to go upstairs.

He is said to have threatened to blow up the building.

Around half a dozen heroes, including a convicted murderer who was attending the same conference, a Polish chef who worked at the hall, two tour guides and an off-duty police officer worked together to stop and disarm the attacker.

Despite being stabbed in the hand, the chef hit Khan with a 5-ft long narwhal tusk he grabbed off a wall inside the hall. Another man sprayed the terrorist in the face with a fire extinguisher.

Khan, of Stafford, struggled as he was pinned to the ground until armed officers arrived and shot him in front of dozens of witnesses as traffic came to a grinding halt on the bridge over the River Thames.

Police said the knifeman was acting alone.

Khan was a convicted terrorist released half-way through a 16-year prison sentence for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.

He was automatically released on licence in December 2018 after serving less than seven years, and wearing an electronic monitoring tag when he went on the stabbing spree.

In February 2012, Khan, formerly of Stoke, was given an open-ended indeterminate sentence for public protection over his part in an al-Qaida-inspired plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange and build a terrorist training camp on land in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir owned by his family.

A list of other potential targets included the names and addresses of the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, then London mayor Boris Johnson, two rabbis, and the American Embassy in London.

But the sentence for Khan, along with two co-conspirators, was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term and freed on licence in December last year and made to wear the tag.

The Parole Board said it had no involvement in his release and that Khan "appears to have been released automatically on licence (as required by law), without ever being referred to the board".

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