London Bridge victim's girlfriend had 'premonitions' of terror attack
The girlfriend of one of the London Bridge victims has told his inquest she had a "premonition" of being involved in a terror attack.
Christine Delcros was walking along the bridge with father-of-two Xavier Thomas when they were mowed down by terrorists in a hired van on the evening of June 3, 2017.
Ms Delcros was badly injured while Mr Thomas, 44, was catapulted over the bridge and into the River Thames.
The Frenchman was found dead three days later, with the cause of death registered as immersion.
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Speaking at the hearing today, an emotional Ms Delcros told the Old Bailey: "I told him I did not know. I had so many premonitions about terror attacks from the day before and I could feel it.
“But I did not tell him, in fact, and to please me he started searching on his phone for another place but it is late now.
"He said, ‘that’s OK, it’s a magnificent view’, and he had planned everything properly accordingly and not to disappoint him I said OK.
“I just called my daughter and he has a younger son so he called his son and after that we went. After that I do not remember at the time of the van.”
Ms Delcros said she remembered being on the bridge and realising something was "not normal".
“Suddenly I was under the impression there was a lot of light and a van that mounted the pavement in the exact fashion to make sure they were not going to miss us.
“I just heard myself say to myself, ‘that’s how one dies, that’s it’.”
Crying, she went on: “I thought that I had died, that the curtain had fallen. To me I was dead. I said to myself that’s how one dies and I have no recollection of the crash.
“It was only light when I woke up.”
As she was receiving help from passersby, she said: "I could hear some voices, I was no longer there.
"I had my whole head with me but I was no longer using my body. I was going. I thought I would never get out of that light. I would stay there for ever.”
Asked by counsel for the coroner Jonathan Hough QC if she wanted to add to her evidence, she said: “I’m madly in love with Xavier.”
BBC journalist Holly Jones saw Ms Delcros and Mr Thomas "looking very happy together" as they walked over the bridge.
She told the hearing: "I remember looking over and saw a female on the floor. My first thought was, ‘where’s the gentleman that was with her?’”
Despite her best efforts, she could not see where he had fallen into the river.
She added: “Those who did this try to separate us but they did the opposite. We are not victims of terror, we are survivors.”
Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Zaghba, 22, left the van can ran around London Bridge and Borough Market, killing six more people and injuring 48.
Their terror spree was brought to a halt by police less than 10 minutes after the rampage.
The victims were Ms Archibald, 30, Mr Thomas, 45, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, Sara Zelenak, 21, Kirsty Boden, 28, Sebastien Belanger, 36, James McMullan, 32, and Ignacio Echeverria, 39.