Residents living in Nottingham city centre have described woke up to a “blood-curdling scream” during a string of early morning attacks that left three people dead.
Within hours, Nottinghamshire Police declared a major incident after multiple victims were stabbed and three more were run over by a van, believed to have been stolen from one of the earlier casualties.
Two students from the University of Nottingham, Barnaby Webber and Grace Kumar, were killed in the attacks on Tuesday.
The third fatality was Ian Coates, a school caretaker who worked as part of LEAD Academy Trust.
Below we look at how the tragic events unfolded over an hour and a half.
Just after 4am on Tuesday, two 19-year-old university students, Mr Webber and Ms Kumar, were found stabbed on the street in Ilkeston Road, Nottinghamshire Police said. They are said to have been walking home after a night out.
A witness told the BBC he saw the pair being attacked on Ilkeston Road, close to the junction with Bright Street.
The man said he heard “awful, blood-curdling screams” and looked out his window to see a “black guy dressed all in black with a hood and rucksack grappling with some people”.
“The lad collapsed in the middle of the road,” the wtiness said. “The girl stumbled toward a house and didn’t move. The next minute she had disappeared down the side of a house, and that’s where they found her.
“I’d say it all happened within five or six minutes. The attacker then just walked off up Ilkeston Road towards town, as calm as anything.”
This map shows timeline of how events unfolded
The man said he called the police who arrived within five minutes, before paramedics tried to revive the pair for 40 minutes.
Police cordoned off a large area in Ilkeston Road with tape, and what appeared to be medical kit was scattered across the road.
Around a mile and a half away, Mr Coates was stabbed to death on Magdala Road.
Police believe that the suspect then stole the caretaker’s van and drove it to nearby Milton Street, where the next stage of the attacks took place.
At around 5.30am, a driver in a white van tried to run over three people waiting at a bus stop. Three people were injured by the van, with one man left fighting for life.
Nottinghamshire Police chief constable Kate Meynell said: “The van was stopped on Maple Street, where a man was tasered and detained by police officers on suspicion of murder.”
Lynn Haggitt, who witnessed the scene, said she saw the driver accelerate after seeing a police car following him.
She said: “There were two people, two in the corner – he went straight into these two people.
“The woman went on the kerb, the man went up in the air – there was such a bang. I wish I never saw it, it’s really shaken me up.”
A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody.
Nottinghamshire Police’s chief constable Kate Meynell told reporters the force was not looking for anyone else in connection with the incidents and no further arrests had been made.
The police chief said the motive behind the attack was yet to be determined, but officers were keeping an “open mind” and working with counter-terror police.
Ms Meynell confirmed officers had carried out searches at a number of properties around the city - with cordons seen being put up on various sections of Ilkeston Road.
A terraced property on the road was under police guard, with staff at a neighbouring hairdresser saying it had been raided last year.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said, “we’re in a very early stage of the investigation” when asked whether the attack could have been terror-related.
Roads have now been reopened in Nottingham city centre following multiple closures on Tuesday. Nottingham’s trams are also running again today, operator NET said.
