Nottingham: University ‘shocked and devastated’ as two 19-year-old students among three killed in attacks

Police are continuing to question a 31-year-old man after three people were stabbed to death and three more injured in an attack in Nottingham early on Tuesday morning.

The University of Nottingham said it was “shocked and devastated” as it revealed two of its students were among the dead.

Talented hockey player Grace Kumar, 19, has been named in reports as one of the victims, along with fellow student Barnaby Webber, also 19.

Officers also said the suspect killed a third victim, stole his van, and used it to drive into people.

Police declared a major incident after the two students were found dead in the street in Ilkeston Road just after 4am.

A witness reported seeing a young man and young woman being stabbed there.

Officers were then called to Milton Street, in the city centre, where a driver had tried to run over people in a van. One person is in a critical condition, two others have minor injuries.

The man was found dead with knife injuries by a member of the public in nearby Magdala Road.

Video appears to show the suspect on the ground next to the van as officers detained him.

Photos of the vehicle show small cracks on the windscreen and apparent damage to the bumper..

Read more:
A timeline of how ‘major incident’ unfolded
Witness describes ‘scream’ as van hit two people
What we know about the attack so far

Hours after the attacks, at around 12.30pm on Tuesday, armed police cut off Ilkeston Road – where the students were stabbed, said Sky correspondent Becky Johnson.

She said two young women were put in the back of a marked car after officers appeared to enter a commercial property.

Chief Constable Kate Meynell said a number of searches had been carried out across the city but no further arrests.

Students turned out at a vigil at St Peter’s Church later on Tuesday, with flowers left for the victims and one card made out to ‘Grace’.

Pair ‘stabbed by attacker in black’

A witness told the BBC he saw a man and woman being stabbed on Ilkeston Road at around 4am.

He said he heard “awful, blood-curdling screams” and there was a “black guy dressed all in black with a hood and rucksack grappling with some people”.

He said the woman was shouting for help.

“I saw him stab the lad first and then the woman. It was repeated stabbing – four or five times. The lad collapsed in the middle of the road,” the witness said.

“The girl stumbled towards 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.”

The man called police, who arrived in about five minutes, before paramedics tried to revive the pair for 40 minutes.

Victim found in ‘pool of blood’

Another witness, who gave her name as Frances, told Sky News she heard a sudden bang and screaming as a white van drove into people in the city centre.

She said she “crossed over the road at Theatre Royal and got around 10 feet down the road when all of a sudden you heard a bang – which sounded like a vehicle hitting a bollard”.

“I turned around and then saw the two people on the floor, on the road,” she added.

“Someone was screaming, I think a gentleman ran over to help as well.”

Petra Gyuricska, 39, said she found the body of the man in his fifties in a “pool of blood” on Magdala Road as she went to work with her husband.

They both live in the area and spotted the body near the tennis club.

“I thought maybe he was homeless, then I saw the blood. I was trying to call the police,” she told Sky News.

Said she police tried to resuscitate the victim, who had more than one chest wound.