Killed in the line of duty: David Amess’s final day in democratic service

Sir David Amess made no secret of where he would be on Friday 15 October – details of his constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist church were pinned at the top of his Twitter account several days in advance.




© Provided by The Guardian
Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Among those who turned up, according to witnesses, was Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old British-born man whose family fled to the UK from Somalia.

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Sources close to the investigation indicated on Sunday that he had booked an appointment to see Amess.

Before the MP met Ali, he took his final Zoom call. It was a meeting with celebrity PR Richard Hillgrove to discuss plans for the Children’s Parliament. The initiative aimed to match 650 British schoolchildren with MPs to create a virtual parliamentary session on the eve of Cop26, the UN climate change conference.

Hillgrove’s daughter, Lola, had been matched with Amess, who visited her at school earlier in the week for photos to promote the event.

“He was in fantastic spirits, in a real ‘go get ’em’ mood, making loads of jokes,” said Hillgrove. “We were going through the running order for the event and he had promised to get Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, to do a video to promote it.”

The Zoom call ended at 12.02. Three minutes later, Amess had been stabbed multiple times in front of shocked aides. One of them called 999. Police arrived swiftly and arrested the suspect. He reportedly had made no attempts to flee the scene but was calmly sitting next to Amess’s body.

“This was a difficult incident but our officers and paramedics from the East of England ambulance service worked extremely hard to save Sir David. Tragically, he died at the scene,” said chief constable Ben-Julian Harrington later.

Word soon spread across Leigh-on-Sea and a local priest arrived to offer Amess the last rites.

Father Jeffrey Woolnough rushed to Belfairs Methodist Church with his holy oils but police would not let him past the cordon.

“A Catholic when they’re dying would want a priest there, and for reasons that only the police know, I was not allowed in,” he said.

He found out about the attack on the news on Friday, which was his rest day, adding: “I got my clerics on, and got the holy oils, sort of expecting that I might be allowed on the crime scene to administer the oil of the sick. I didn’t know at that time what kind of condition he was in … but it didn’t sound great, so it was a just-in-case matter.




© Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
Flowers laid by prime minister Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel, Labour leader Keir Starmer and House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle at the scene where David Amess died outside Belfairs Methodist Church.

“When I got there, I showed my card to the police and I asked if there was any chance that I can get in? And in fairness the policeman there radioed through and said: ‘I’m afraid not, this is a crime scene.’”

Instead, Fr Woolnough prayed the rosary outside the police cordon with a fellow parishioner. “Working with the police we have to respect what they said. It would’ve been a great thing to do if I’d have had the chance, but it wasn’t to be,” the priest said.

Within 36 hours of the attack, the suspect was named in the media as Ali. His father, Harbi Ali Kullane, a former adviser to the prime minister of Somalia, later confirmed to the Sunday Times that anti-terrorist police from Scotland Yard had visited him since the attack.

“I’m feeling very traumatised. It’s not something that I expected or even dreamed of,” he said.

Police were granted a warrant of further detention at Westminster magistrates’ court which allows them to hold the suspect until 22 October.

Source: Thanks msn.com