Video footage played to a jury in the Lee Rigby murder trial. Photo / Metropolitan Police
Video footage played to a jury in the Lee Rigby murder trial. Photo / Metropolitan Police
London's Metropolitan Police has put out dramatic new pictures and footage that detail the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby and the dramatic aftermath involving police.
They were made public as a police markswoman told jurors at the Old Bailey that she feared for her life when she was left defenceless as the alleged killer of Rigby charged at her car waving a machete.
The officer, known only as D49 and the driver of a three-strong armed response unit, struggled to pull her gun out of a holster as Michael Adebolajo sprinted towards her car, the court heard.
CCTV footage shown in court showed a machete-wielding man get to within a few feet of D49's car door before he was thrown into the air with the impact of a shot from her colleague sitting in the car's back seat.
The incident, caught on two cameras, showed the other defendant, Michael Adebowale, pointing a gun at the three officers before he was also shot after the daylight killing of the soldier on May 22.
The prosecution says Adebolajo, 28, and Adebowale, 22, rammed the soldier in their car and mutilated his body, then waited for the police and began a second murderous assault.
"I saw a flash to my right, when I looked I saw a black male running at me waving both hands up in the air with a chopping motion," said D49 in a statement read to the court. "I instantly thought he is going to kill me. I could not immediately pull out my Glock ... I could see the look in the suspect's eyes. They were so wide I could see the whites of them."
The officer in the back of the car, E48, told the court yesterday of his decision to shoot Adebolajo as he charged towards the car. Speaking from behind a screen, he told the court D49 was "defenceless, she had a pane of glass to protect herself".
"The second he started sprinting at us still in possession of that knife I made the decision to fire and until he fell away from the vehicle I was still in the frame of mind," he said.
Video footage played to a jury in the Lee Rigby murder trial. Photo / Metropolitan Police
The officer did not spot Adebowale, who ran along the pavement near the wall, until a third colleague, E42, opened fire. Despite being shot in the leg and stomach, Adebowale raised his gun and pointed it towards D49.
"It felt like everything went in slow motion," she said in her statement. "I thought 'Oh my God, he is going to shoot me'. I feared for my life."
She ducked as another shot was fired, thinking it was for her, but it was fired by a colleague and felled Adebowale. The pair were disarmed and treated for their injuries.
Adebolajo told a paramedic who treated him that he believed in sharia law and "should be allowed to have as many women as he wanted", the court was told yesterday. He kept saying on his way to hospital that British soldiers were raping and killing women in Afghanistan, according to paramedic William Woolston.
Adebolajo and Adebowale both deny killing Rigby close to his barracks in Woolwich, southeast London. They also deny attempting to murder a police officer. The trial continues.Independent
