MI5 watched the London Bridge terror suspects load their van with a large holdall before leaving for their deadly attack, it has been alleged.
Intelligence officers reportedly watched the ringleader Khuram Butt, 27, and his two accomplices load a van on CCTV outside his flat in Barking, east London, just two hours before it was used as a battering ram.
But officers didn't order police to act because Butt had been downgraded as an MI5 priority and they didn't realise he was about to carry out an attack.
However on the day of the attack Butt was still the subject of a 'live investigation' according to a report by David Anderson QC, the government's former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
In practice, this meant a team from MI5 and Scotland Yard were secretly watching him at key locations such as his flat, informed sources told the Sunday Times.
Records of the vehicle's movements indicate that after leaving the flat in Barking, Butt and Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, scouted Trafalgar Square and Oxford Street as possible targets, before striking at London Bridge.
The terrorists ploughed into pedestrians on the bridge before stabbing victims in nearby Borough Market with 12-inch ceramic knives on June 3 last year. The attack lasted from 10.07 to 10.16pm when the attackers, who killed eight people in total, were shot dead by police at the scene.
