New footage has emerged of the teenage suspect in the Parsons Green bombing riding his bike in the days before the attack.
The 18-year-old Iraqi refugee, who is now being questioned in custody, can be seen cycling near his foster home in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
Footage obtained by ITV news shows him passing the same CCTV camera on three days in the week of the planned atrocity, wearing the same red hat every time.
The latest shot was taken on 13 September, just two days before a failed bucket bomb went off at Parsons Green station on Friday morning, injuring 30.
New footage has emerged of the teenage suspect in the Parsons Green bombing riding his bike in the days before the attack
The 18-year-old Iraqi refugee, who is now being questioned in custody, can be seen cycling near his foster home in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey
The latest shot was taken on 13 September, just two days before a failed bucket bomb went off at Parsons Green station on Friday morning, injuring 30
It comes after footage emerged of a man with a Lidl shopping bag, grey track suit and a red hat walking towards Sunbury railway station just 90 minutes before the explosion.
The film was taken from Ecco La Vera pizza restaurant on Vicarage Road in Sunbury, just a third of a mile from the home of Ronald and Penny Jones – the foster parents of the 18-year-old arrested over the attack.
The Italian eatery is on the most direct route from the suspect’s foster home on Convent Road and Sunbury station where he is believed to have boarded a train to Wimbledon before joining the District line.
Only an hour and a half after these images were taken the improvised explosive device went off, injuring more than 30 men, women and children. The images were captured at 7.04am not 7.30am as the time-stamp incorrectly reads.
Walking along the street carrying a Lidl shopping bag, this may be the Parsons Green tube bomber filmed on his way to carry out the planned atrocity
The suspect is believed to have caught the 7.15am service to Wimbledon, arriving at 7.46am. Detectives will be investigating why he appears to have waited in Wimbledon for up to 25 minutes and if he met anyone before boarding the District Line train where at least 30 people were injured.
The Tube service left at around 8.10 and arrived at Parsons Green at 8.20am when the device blew up – but the bomber is believed to have left the train at an earlier stop and used a timer to set it off.
Primed with an explosive known as ‘Mother of Satan’ with fairy lights fuse, the device could have killed and 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.
7am: The prime suspect then walks along Vicarage Road (pictured) towards Sunbury railway station, sometimes struggling with the unwieldy 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
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
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.
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.
Police were on Monday night given extra time to question the two men. Magistrates had granted warrants allowing the 18-year-old to be held until Saturday September 23, and Farroukh until Thursday September 21.
Police have been able to trace the terror suspect’s journey from Sunbury in Surrey to Parsons Green using CCTV, which shows him holding a Lidl freezer bag
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.
6.50am: 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
7.15am: The terror suspect is believed to have caught the service from Sunbury (file picture) to Wimbledon, arriving at 7.46am
8.10am: Detectives will be piecing together what happened in the 25 minutes or so before he boarded a district line train from Wimbledon
8.20am: The bomb sends a ‘wall of flame’ through the carriage of the train but fails to properly ignite at Parsons Green
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 couple who own the Sunbury home, Ronald and Penelope Jones, receive MBEs from the Queen in 2009 for fostering hundreds of children
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
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.’
An aerial view of Cavendish Road in Sudbury-on-Thames where the house that has been raided is located
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