London bombing victims could not have been saved, inquest rules

NONE of the victims of the 7/7 bombings in London could have been saved if emergency workers had reached them more quickly, a judge ruled today.

Judge Heather Hallett said, at the end of the inquests in to the deaths, that the commuters were "unlawfully killed in a dreadful act of terrorism" by the four bombers and, no "failings on the part of any organization or individual caused or contributed to any of the deaths".

There were 52 victims of the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks.

Twenty-six people died in the bombing between King's Cross and Russell Square on the Piccadilly line. They included Adrian Johnson, 37, a married father-of-two and product technical manager for Burberry, from Sutton-in-Ashfield. He was travelling into work in central London via King's Cross when he was killed.

Six died in the bombing at Edgware Road on the Circle line; this was the homemade rucksack bomb detonated by Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, whose family lived in Beeston at the time. They included Laura Webb, 29, from Islington, north London, a former media studies student at Nottingham Trent University who was killed as she travelled to work as a personal assistant at the advertising agency BDB Europe in Paddington.

Thirteen died in the bombing on the number 30 bus in Tavistock Square; seven died in the bombing at Aldgate on the Circle line.

The inquest at London's High Court, which began last October, was told that Britain's domestic intelligence service had two of the bombers under surveillance, but failed to stop the deadly attacks. There were also failures in the response by emergency workers — confusion, a shortage of first aid supplies and radios that did not work underground.

Hallett said, however, that government errors had not increased the death toll.

"I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that each of them would have died whatever time the emergency services had reached and rescued them," she said.

She did make a series of recommendations to improve training and emergency-response procedures for police, fire, ambulance and transit staff, and proposed full government funding for the London Air Ambulance service, which relies on donations and volunteer doctors.

Hallett said there was no need to hold inquests for the four bombers, all young British Muslims — Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18 and Jermaine Lindsay, 19.

The courtroom was packed with victims' relatives, several of whom bowed their heads or wiped their eyes as Hallett mentioned each of the 52 victims in turn.

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