The bucket bombing suspect’s 90-minute journey before he blew up a Tube train can be revealed today.
Police have been able to trace the terror suspect’s journey from Sunbury in Surrey to Parsons Green using CCTV, which shows him struggling with the unwieldy ‘Mother of Satan’ bomb inside a Lidl freezer bag.
He was first filmed near the Cavendish Road home of Ronald and Penny Jones – the foster parents of an 18-year-old Iraqi refugee arrested over the attack – at 6.50am last Friday.
The prime suspect then walks along Vicarage Road towards Sunbury railway station, sometimes struggling with the unwieldy bomb inside a Lidl freezer bag, before catching the 7.15am service to Wimbledon, arriving at 7.46am.
Detectives will be investigating why he waited in Wimbledon for up to 25 minutes before boarding the District Line train where 29 people were injured.
The Tube service left at around 8.10 and arrived at Parsons Green at 8.20am when it blew up – but the bomber is believed to have left the train at an earlier stop.
Police have been able to trace the terror suspect’s journey from Sunbury in Surrey to Parsons Green using CCTV, which shows him struggling with the unwieldy ‘Mother of Satan’ bomb inside a Lidl freezer bag
A photograph of the flaming white bucket taken just after it exploded around 8.20am on Friday shows a number of wires protruding out of the top of Lidl bag
Primed with an explosive known as ‘Mother of Satan’, a timer and fairy lights, the device could have killed maimed but thankfully failed to properly ignite.
Last night it was claimed that the suspect was arrested at the Port of Dover when police recognised a red hat he was wearing and grabbed him before he could leave the country.
Police visited the alleged bucket bomber’s foster home ‘a few times a week’ for the past month and more recently anti-terror officers had been watching the house, a neighbour claimed today.
The 18-year-old arrested trying to leave the country on Friday is believed to have been living with Ronald Jones, 88, and wife Penelope, 71, in Sunbury-on-Thames.
A second suspect, a 21-year-old Syrian Yahya Faroukh, was later arrested in Hounslow, with police also swooping on his house in Stanwell, Surrey, directly opposite Heathrow airport.
Faroukh lived with the Jones’ until May and Scotland Yard are investigating whether they first met abroad in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp or even as far away as ISIS-controlled Syria or Iraq.
Mr and Mrs Jones’ Surrey home was raided by an armed counter-terrorism unit on Saturday morning and is still behind a huge metal police cordon on the street.
Stephen Griffiths, 28, who lives opposite the ‘lovely couple’, said they were visited ‘multiple times over the span of about a month – a few times a week’, and believes their house may have been under surveillance.
He said: ‘They started off as normally dressed cops, then moved up in the police ranks, wearing black uniforms in an undercover car. They used to speak to Penny and Ron on the doorstep, but the last couple of times they went in the house.
In the CCTV video obtained by ITV , a man dressed in a grey tracksuit keeps his head down and his face hidden from the camera as he walks quickly down the street
Penelope and Ronald Jones’ property in Surrey today, which has been encased by a metal cordon today as counter-terrorism comb through it for clues about the Parsons Green bucket bomb
Mr Griffiths said the home was last visited by police between two and three weeks ago, and having witnessed Saturday’s raid, he now believes they were counter-terror officers.
A second suspect, Yahya Faroukh, whose home was raided by police, pictured in Brighton, was arrested over the weekend – he is believed to have known the 18-year-old from foster care
‘You need to question whether the house was under surveillance,’ he said.
‘I think counter-terror police visited a few weeks ago, and if so, why wasn’t something done sooner?’
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said the 18-year-old, who was detained on Saturday morning in the departure area of Dover ferry port, had not been arrested ‘in the last couple of weeks’.
But she could not confirm whether he or the property had been visited by officers recently.
In the CCTV video obtained by ITV, a man dressed in a grey tracksuit keeps his head down and his face hidden from the camera as he walks quickly down the street.
In other developments:
- Neighbours claimed the 18-year-old was a tearaway who was held by police just two weeks ago at the same Parsons Green station and had been spoken to by officers ‘several times’;
- Police spotted a suspect in a red hat at Dover having spotted him by chance in departures;
- There were questions over the child refugee foster system amid concerns about the 18-year-old’s behaviour;
- A second suspect, a 21-year-old Syrian Yahya Faroukh, was later arrested in Hounslow, with police also swooping on his house in Stanwell, Surrey, directly opposite Heathrow airport
- Scotland Yard are investigating whether the men first met abroad in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp or even as far away as ISIS-controlled Syria or Iraq;
- Defence Secretary Michael Fallon demanded that internet giants do more to take down extremist material;
- The terror threat level was lowered from ‘critical’ to ‘severe’ – hinting police believe they have neutralised threat;
The arrested teenager is thought to have been a ‘problematic foster child’ who was raised in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, by Penelope Jones, 71, and husband Ronald, 88.
A local councillor said the teenage suspect came to the UK aged 15 after his parents died in Iraq while a friend of the Joneses said the man’s biological family did not agree with him moving in with Christian foster parents.
The couple’s home was raided by armed officers on Saturday and a neighbour claiming a bomb had been found, although Scotland Yard quashed reports that 15 firearms were seized, a neighbour claimed.
Residents on the street said officers had been in the area since Friday night with one neighbour saying: ‘I only had to open the door and I saw police everywhere.’
The lilac-painted property raided in connection with the attack, which injured 30, is owned by a kind-hearted couple who were both appointed MBEs for fostering hundreds of children
The Joneses have raised 268 foster children in the house over three decades and the last eight have been refugees. Eight years ago the kind-hearted couple were awarded MBEs by the Queen for their services to children and families. A family member has confirmed the Joneses are currently ‘safe and well’.
Friends said they had ‘ups and downs’ with fostering and there are concerns about how little they were told about the 18-year-old suspect.
A family friend told The Times that the couple had learned more about him from police than they did from Surrey County Council, who placed him with them.
She said: ‘They were aware he had been in an Isis-controlled area but there was a lack of information about what appears now to have been a very troubled past.
‘Penny and Ron are very good people. They’ve been doing what decent English people have been doing for decades and that is offering a helping hand. They’re not to blame for this situation’.
Video footage of the raid shows armed stood outside the lilac-coloured home before one shouts:‘Armed police! Come to the front door, now!’
Following the arrests the Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the UK terror threat level has been reduced to ‘severe’ — meaning intelligence chiefs no longer think an attack is imminent.
She added said it appeared the bomber was not a lone wolf but added that it was ‘too early to reach any final conclusions on that’.
Speaking this afternoon Ms Rudd said police had made ‘good progress’ in the investigation as she announced the country had been removed from the highest terror alert.
It is not known how long the foster teenager living in the Sunbury home is believed to have resided there.
Another neighbour said the man had been dropped off from a foster home in Kent and that he saw him ‘ranting and raving’ at Mr Jones in the garden.
He said: ‘I decided to go out to try and calm the situation down, I said to the lad, ‘they are nice people and you need to calm down’.
‘He was ranting and raving saying he wanted to go to London.’
A family friend told The Sun that the teenager’s biological family were upset that he was being sent to live with the Joneses because they are Christian.
She said: ‘I asked (the teenager) if he wanted to come to my church to help settle in and meet people but he didn’t want to come.
‘His family are not happy he is with a Christian family.’
Officers stormed the Sunbury home, on Cavendish Road, at 2pm on Saturday, around six hours after apprehending the suspect in the departure lounge of the Port of Dover.
Around 60 residents on the street were told to leave their homes, while unconfirmed reports suggested ‘explosives’ were found in the garden and ‘firearms’ seen under the floorboards.
One neighbour, who identified herself as Carrie, said: ‘I was speaking to a police officer and asking him what was going on and how long we would be out of our house.
‘He said he could not say but pointed to one of his colleagues and said he might know. I asked him and he told me they had found 15 firearms at the house and a bomb in the garden. It doesn’t feel real any of this.’
The couple who own the Sunbury home, Ronald and Penelope Jones, receive MBEs from the Queen in 2009 for fostering hundreds of children
Penelope Jones became a foster mother after working in a juvenile prison and was always supported by her husband. She said: ‘I just like being able to help people’
Close friends of pensioners Penny and Ron Jones said the couple – who are widely respected in the local area – were at ‘their end’ with the teenager
Close friends of pensioners Penny and Ron Jones said the couple – who are widely respected in the local area – were at ‘their end’ with the teenager.
Serena Barber, 47, who has known the couple all her life and lives in a property backing on to theirs, said: ‘They have two boys at the moment, both are foreign. One is very quiet and polite, the other who is 18 is awful.
‘I know about two weeks ago he was arrested by police at Parsons Green, for what I don’t know and returned back to Penny and Ron. After that Penny said she was going to have to stop caring for him, she couldn’t handle him.’
The development comes as police revealed they are ‘keeping an open mind’ on whether there was more than one person responsible for the bombing.
The man who lives in the Stanwell address raided by police on Sunday is a light-skinned man of Arabic appearance, according to local residents.
He is described as having dark, frizzy hair and is around 5ft 7ins or 5ft 8ins tall.
According to a couple, who asked not to be named, he habitually stayed up late at night and was often visited by two male companions, who appeared to be in their late teens.
The husband said: ‘He seemed a really, really nice chap, we have sat there and had a drink with him, but he didn’t drink alcohol.
‘He was from North Africa, I think, perhaps Morocco or Algeria, but he had family from Scotland.
‘I think he moved in about 14 months ago, he was very quiet, he was on his own.
‘He had two guys there that used to be there all the time with him, he would have them there through the night and they were always playing games.
Police earlier swooped on a house in Stanwell, just yards away from Heathrow Airport, after a suspect was arrested in Hounslow last night
Police officers on the scene during a search on a residential address in Stanwell, Surrey, after the arrest of the second suspect in west London
Two people have been arrested after the terror attack which left 30 people injured on the Tube on Friday morning
‘But they never had the TV on and there wasn’t a lot of furniture, his friends were about 18 or 19.’
His wife added: ‘We thought he was a security guard or a prison officer because of his uniform.
‘To me he just kept himself to himself, he wasn’t involved with us or the neighbours, but he seemed to be up at unusual hours.
‘He had pale skin and fluffy hair that was short, he didn’t own the house, we don’t know whether he was renting it off someone else.’
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said: ‘At approximately 7.50am local police officers in Kent arrested an 18-year-old man in the departures area of the port in Dover.
‘He was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism and transferred to custody in a police station in London.
‘Officers from Kent police had to partially evacuate the port of Dover at 11am this morning. That work is now complete and they have recovered a number of items during that search.’
‘At around 1.40pm with the assistance of Surrey Police, we evacuated a house on Sunbury-on-Thames. As a precautionary measure we evacuated the surrounding buildings.
‘I want to reassure that community that our experts are quickly and thoroughly searching that address.
Foster couple that took in hundreds of needy children
The kind-hearted couple whose house in Sunbury was raided on Saturday have MBEs for fostering at least 268 people over three decades.
Of those children Penny and Ron Jones have taken in, at least eight were refugees coming from countries including Iraq, Eritrea, Syria, Albania and Afghanistan.
One of them was a 15-year-old boy who had smuggled himself into the country from Calais in the back of a lorry after escaping his oppressive family who had imprisoned him for his beliefs.
Mrs Jones, who has six children of her own with her husband, said in an interview with community group Elmbridge CAN: ‘We just try and support where we can – because they’ve had bad lives.
Penny and Ron Jones have taken in at least eight refugees coming from countries including Iraq, Eritrea, Syria, Albania and Afghanistan
‘Sometimes, watching the news, they can get so worked up that they have to leave the house and go for a walk – it’s awful to see and it’s so difficult for them.’
Mrs Jones was inspired to foster children after working in a juvenile prison for five years.
‘[I read] one of the kids profiles and thought, ‘had his mum and dad had time for him, he wouldn’t be in here’. Every time I gave him some attention he grabbed it. I knew that if he’d had this before, he would never have gone off [the rails].’
In an interview with the BBC after the couple were honoured by the Queen in 2009 Mrs Jones said the children they take in need to be ‘loved and feel special’.
She added: ‘We open our hearts to all the children. Anybody that comes to us we will do whatever we can do to help them with whatever they need.’
The couple try to stay in touch with all the children they have taken in. Mrs Jones said: ‘I send them birthday cards – it’s a very extended family.’
Serena Barber, 47, who has known the foster parents all her life, said: ‘They have two boys at the moment, both are foreign. One is very quiet and polite, the other who is 18 is awful’. Pictured: The scene in Sudbury tonight
At least eight of the Jones’ foster children have been refugees, with some coming from Iraq, Eritrea, Syria, Albania and Afghanistan. The couple were honoured by the Queen in 2009 for their services to children and families
An aerial view of Cavendish Road in Sudbury-on-Thames where the house that has been raided is located
‘At this stage we are keeping an open mind about whether more than one person is responsible for this attack and we are still pursuing multiple lines of enquiry at pace.’
Deputy Commissioner Basu revealed police have received 180 photos and videos and located 121 witnesses – 100 of whom they have spoken to already.
Sunbury-on-Thames is just a 37-minute train ride from Wimbledon station, where the tube that was bombed on Friday began its journey.
Residents on Cavendish Road were evacuated and asked to find somewhere to stay for the evening. Staines Rugby Club has been set up as a meeting point.
Police even applied to the Civil Aviation Authority for a no-fly zone to stop drones and TV news helicopters flying overhead.
Residents in the outer cordon were allowed home at 8pm after they had given their names and proof of address to police.
They were told once they were in their houses they must stay there unless absolutely necessary, and sign in and out of the cordon until it was lifted if they had to leave.
Residents closer living closer to the house were asked to find alternative accommodation for the night.
Brenda Matthews, 53, was told by police to pack essential items and find somewhere to stay for 12 hours while specialist officers raided the property.
She said: ‘I looked out this morning and saw men with bandannas. I asked what was going on and a neighbour told me it was a terrorist raid.
‘Everyone knows everyone round here. The house involved is blocked off, police are knocking on doors to try and basically get everyone out and to safety.
‘The scary thing is how long have these people been living in this house for? I’ve lived here seven years.’
Mrs Jones is the governor of a local school and became a foster mother after working in a juvenile prison and was always supported by her husband.
The couple featured in an interview with Elmbridge CAN, a community group which aims ‘to build a culture of welcome to refugees’ and help settle them in the local community.
The organisation states that Mr and Mrs Jones have been foster parents for almost 40 years and had taken in 268 children – the last eight of which were refugees. It is not clear when the interview was published.
In the interview Mrs Jones said fostering ‘had its ups and downs’, adding: ‘They’re all children, it doesn’t matter if they’re sky blue or with pink dots on them – they just need to be loved.’
Alison Griffiths, a Surrey county councillor who knows Mr and Mrs Jones, said they had two young people staying with them – an 18-year-old and a 22-year-old.
She described Mr and Mrs Jones as ‘great pillars of the community’, adding: ‘They do a job that not many people do.’
Police were seen searching bins outside Dover Priory railway station on prompting suggestions the suspect may have arrived in the town by train
An 18-year-old man was arrested in Dover in relation to the Parsons Green bombing at around 3pm. This image shows police at the port
A police van pictured in the Dover port area outside a building that houses the terminal’s control offices and a car rental firm where officers say they have arrested an 18-year-old man in connection with the attack on Parsons Green
Armed police raided the residential property on Cavendish Road in Sunbury-on-Thames in connection to the Parsons Green bombing
There is a heavy police presence around the area, where residents have been ordered to leave their homes as the investigation continues
One neighbour, a 32-year-old woman, told MailOnline she was ordered to leave her mother’s house after getting a knock on the door from a police SWAT team
Ms Griffiths, 42, said the couple may not be able to return home for days as police continue to search their house.
She said: ‘I think they are actually staying with friends of theirs.
‘But I spoke to the police officer earlier and he said he doesn’t think they will be going home until at least five days because of forensics.’
Mojgan Jamali, who lives on the road where the house was raided this afternoon, said police gave her just ‘one minute’ to pack her bags, grab her children, and leave her home.
She said: ‘We didn’t know what was going on. There was a lot of rumours going on, a lot of stories, people saying this and that, but we didn’t know.’
Another neighbour, who did not wish to be named, told MailOnline police vehicles swooped on the street as she was making her way to a local Tesco store. We thought it was a drug raid, but the police would not tell us anything.
‘We tried driving around but they had blocked of part of the road and they said that we really need to go right down [to the other end of the road].
‘When I was leaving they were knocking on all the doors. A police sergeant told us that they had found an explosive device.’
A 32-year-old woman who lives locally told MailOnline she was ordered to leave her mother’s house after getting a knock on the door from a police SWAT team.
‘My brother got a bang on the door about half past one by a swat team and they were told to leave immediately.
‘We are waiting outside on Catherine Drive there now. Everyone is cold and just waiting to see when we can go back home. The couple in the house are lovely, they’ve be fostering kids for years since I was little.’
A woman, who lives opposite, added: ‘I am so worried about Ron and Penny, they are a lovely couple. I hear they have been taken away for questioning. I don’t understand.’
The bomb detonated on the tube at Parsons Green in west London, at around 8pm injuring 30 people. Two hours afterwards, the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating a terrorist incident.
On Friday evening, the Islamic State claimed the attack, saying it had been carried out by their ‘soldiers’, although the group has made false claims in the past.
Theresa May raised the UK’s threat level to critical on Friday night and soldiers were deployed to guard key sites, such as nuclear power stations, to free up armed police for regular patrols.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd described arrest of the 18-year-old at 7.50am in the Dover port departure lounge as ‘very significant’, but added: ‘The operation is ongoing.’
The suspect was taken to a local police station and will be transferred to south London during the course of the day, officers said.
One witness said the man was arrested in the ticket office at the port.
She told The Sunday Mirror: ‘He was surrounded by about seven police officers as he went to buy a ticket. It was all done very quickly and quietly.
Scotland Yard said last night it is making ‘excellent’ progress in hunting the suspected terrorist who set off a crude bucket bomb on a packed commuter train. The timeline of the attack is shown in this graphic
‘I couldn’t really see who he was or what he was wearing as they were all around him. ‘I didn’t realise what it was at the time. It’s only after and heard it on the news I realised what it was.’
Tourist Daniel Vaselicu, 31, said the man appeared calm as the officers two unarmed interrogated him for 10 minutes before arresting him minutes later.
Police were seen searching bins outside Dover Priory railway station on prompting suggestions the suspect may have arrived in the town by train.
The station also has CCTV cameras positioned in and outside the building. The station is a 30 minute walk to the port. Police officers also searched industrial bins at the Dover ferry passenger terminal.
Officers were pictured lifting plastic carrier bags out of the bin and examining them before putting them back.
Police lay in wait at the port for his arrival, sources told the Mail On Sunday, suggesting his movements were being monitored by security services.
It is understood he was identified following an exhaustive examination by hundreds of detectives of CCTV footage.
This prompted a tense surveillance operation involving MI5 and several police forces which ended dramatically with the Dover sting. Special Forces were also involved, according to the Sunday Times.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick vowed: ‘London has not stopped after other terrible attacks and it will not stop after this one.’
A forensic officer in blue overalls walks along the pavement near Parsons Green tube station as the investigation continued into the attack on Friday
Armed policemen stand by cordon near Parsons Green tube station – and the Met will flood London with them over the coming days
A police cordon remained outside Parsons Green Tube station on Friday afternoon following the blast during the morning rush hour
It was the middle of rush hour on Friday when the crude bucket bomb – which had a timer – went off at 8.20am inside a tube train packed with commuters, including schoolchildren and a pregnant woman.
The train is regularly packed full of schoolchildren. The Fulham area serves at least three state secondary schools: Fulham Boys School, The London Oratory and Lady Margaret Hall along with a number of independent schools.
Terrified passengers were left covered in blood with scorched hands, legs, faces and hair – others suffered crush injuries during a stampede as they ‘ran for their lives’ over fears the ‘train would blow up’.
London Ambulance took 19 patients to hospitals, while the others went in themselves. The four hospitals dealing with patients were Imperial, Chelsea and Westminster, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and St George’s. All but one patient have now been released.
An officer at the scene on Friday told MailOnline: ‘We believe there is a second bomb – there is a man with knives on the loose.’
In a pre-recorded television statement released around 8.30pm, Mrs May said military personnel would replace police officers ‘on guard duties at certain protected sites which are not accessible to the public’.
She said: ‘The public will see more armed police on the transport network and on our streets, providing extra protection.
‘This is a proportionate and sensible step which will provide extra reassurance and protection while the investigation progresses.’
An injured man is helped into an ambulance – one of 18 ferried by ambulance to hospitals across London. Four others went to A&E themselves
Speaking moments afterwards, Assistant Commissioner Mike Rowley said: ‘We are making excellent progress at the moment as we pursue our lines of inquiry to identify, locate and arrest those responsible.
‘We have hundreds of police officers trawling through CCTV footage, detectives have spoken to tens of witnesses and we have taken a large number of calls to the hotline… from members of the public.
Donald Trump tweeted just hours after the blast that police had the attacker ‘in their sights’ and should have been ‘more proactive’ in catching ‘the loser’.
Scotland Yard hit back and said Mr Trump’s comments were ‘pure speculation’ while senior officers refused to name the suspect.
The President later adopted a more conciliatory tone in another tweet last night saying, ‘our hearts and prayers go out to the people of London’.
Mrs May also hit out at the President’s tweet, calling it ‘unhelpful’, and has this evening discussed the intelligence sharing between the two countries with the President in a telephone call.
Witnesses to the explosion said there was a loud ‘bang’, a flash and then a ball of flame engulfed surrounding passengers on the ‘packed’ District Line train.
Gillian Wixley, 36, who lives in Putney, was eight seats from the explosion. She said: ‘It was chaotic: There was lots of people panicking and people were injured due to the crush.
‘Everyone was very emotional. There was one boy maybe age ten who was commuting to school on his own. He was sitting on the floor sobbing.
There is terror and panic at the station on Friday morning, with police officers consoling members of the public
A family with young children look towards the station in the aftermath of the terror attack on London on Friday morning
‘He was obviously in shock and very scared. Everyone around him was trying to calm him down and help him.’
Lady Margaret Hall schoolgirl Emanuella Mensah, 16, described the panic: ‘I was right outside the corner shop when people started running from the station. People were shouting ‘run, run’. I saw old people, people with their kids. Then someone shouted ‘terrorist!’. More people kept coming out of the station.’
‘There were people sitting on the pavement crying and in hysterics. Schoolgirls were coming from all kinds of directions. The teachers came down and we started escorting people into school.’
She said the younger children were particularly shocked and scared and that the distress carried on throughout the day.
‘Years seven, eight and nine, they were all on the phone trying to call their parents. People were crying everywhere.
‘The teachers were putting them into rooms, giving them water and biscuits, trying to keep them calm. They tried to keep everyone going to their lessons but people couldn’t concentrate.’
Luke Warsmey said: ‘The explosion was like a large match going off at the end of the carriage. People just started sprinting. It was every man for himself when that happened. The burn victims had severe leg injuries.
‘It was a very busy commuter train, young and old, school children going to their schools. I saw was nannies trying to look for kids, because of the rush of people just taking five and six year olds away from them and they were trying to look for them.
‘There were lots of injuries from people being trampled on and everyone who had been close to it had the same burns to their head.’
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