Liverpool Womens hospital blast UK threat level increased to severe after terrorist incident live updates

Here’s some analysis from the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, on the decision to raise the threat level to terrorism to severe:

The threat to Britain from terrorism has been raised to severe - meaning that an attack is now deemed highly likely - in the aftermath of the explosion outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

The decision was taken by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre on Monday, Whitehall sources said, and it represents an upgrade of one notch from the previous threat level, substantial.

The threat level had been at the lower level since 8 February following a “significant reduction” in the momentum of attacks in Europe, including those seen in Austria and France between September and November 2020.

The decision reflects the fact that two terror attacks have taken place in the past month; the other being the killing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess at his constituency surgery in Leigh-on-sea, Essex.

The Muslim Council of Britain has shared a statement praising the bravery of David Perry, the Liverpool taxi driver whose swift response is thought to have possibly prevented a wider atrocity in the city.

Zara Mohammed, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said:

“Nothing justifies this reprehensible act, and we praise the quick action of David Perry who prevented a terrorist attack. The explosion took place outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital, which holds a special place for the people of Liverpool. Many Muslims work at the hospital and the institution is a neighbour to one of the city’s largest mosques. This is an attack on all of us and the values we all hold dear. We thank the emergency services for their swift and ongoing response to the attack.

“Liverpool has a special place in the history of the British Muslims, being home to one of the earliest Muslim communities in Victorian England. We join Liverpool’s mosques and Islamic centres as they pray for peace and calm in the city.”

The home secretary Priti Patel said the terror threat level had been raised because there had been two attacks in the space of a month.

Speaking to broadcasters, she said: “The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, Jtac, are now increasing the United Kingdom’s threat level from substantial to severe. And there’s a reason for that, and that reason is because what we saw yesterday is the second incident in a month.”

The UK terrorism threat level has increased to severe following the Liverpool Women’s hospital blast on Sunday, meaning an attack is “highly likely”, a government source said.

Severe is the second highest threat level.

PA Media has provided a useful summary of everything we know so far:

The explosion happened inside a taxi outside the hospital moments before 11am on Remembrance Sunday.

Emergency services were on the scene within minutes and one man, the passenger in the taxi, was pronounced dead.

The driver of the taxi, named locally as David Perry, was injured but managed to escape and has since been released from hospital.

He picked up the passenger in the Rutland Avenue area of Liverpool, roughly a 10-minute drive from Liverpool Women’s hospital, said Russ Jackson, the assistant chief constable from counter-terrorism policing north-west.

Officers said an explosion came from within the car as it approached the drop-off point.

Police have declared the event a “terrorist incident” and said the proximity in location and time to Remembrance services was a “line of inquiry”, though officers cannot draw a connection “at this time”.

Officers say “inquiries indicate that an improvised explosive device has been manufactured” and are working under the assumption the passenger built it in the taxi.

They believe they know the identity of the passenger but have not confirmed it publicly.

Detectives are unsure what the motivation behind the attack was, the reason for the device’s “sudden explosion” or why the passenger asked to be taken to the hospital.

Three men aged 21, 26 and 29 were detained on Sunday in Sutcliffe Street in the nearby Kensington area of the city.

A fourth man, aged 20, was arrested on Monday, also in the Kensington area.

All were arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act, under which officers can detain terror suspects without a warrant, and will be interviewed on Monday.

Two addresses, one in Sutcliffe Street and another in Rutland Avenue, have been searched, with the second address yielding “significant items”, Jackson said.

Eight families were evacuated from near the Rutland Avenue address and a cordon is in place.

Boris Johnson praised the taxi driver for acting with “incredible presence of mind and bravery”, while the mayor of Liverpool, Joanne Anderson, lauded the driver for his “heroic efforts”.

Liverpool Women’s hospital said visiting access had been restricted “until further notice” and there was an increased security and police presence on the site.

More from the neighbours interviewed by PA reporters:

Matthew Heightman, 26, who lives opposite the raided house in Sutcliffe Street, Liverpool, said: “Two of the men were marched out at gunpoint and they had them up against the wall.

“There wasn’t any kind of struggle, they just walked out of the front.

“The people living there had not long moved in, maybe weeks or months.”

More from the Guardian’s Manchester-based reporter Maya Wolfe-Robinson:

Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson said the taxi driver, David Perry, who was “understandably very shook up” when interviewed by counter terror officers, has now been released from hospital after he was treated for his injuries.

There is no suggestion that he told police he had any indication that anything was amiss during the 10-minute journey. He picked up the passenger from Rutland Avenue, who asked to be taken to Liverpool Women’s hospital, according to police.

Jackson said police had “attributed” the taxi passenger to both the addresses where officers were currently searching but were uncertain which address he lived at.

“We have got significant items in one of the addresses,” Jackson said.

The Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, has spoken to an intelligence expert about Sunday’s incident:

A former military intelligence officer told the Guardian he believes Liverpool Women’s hospital “had an extremely lucky escape” because the explosive device in the taxi “clearly didn’t go off as the terrorist intended”.

Philip Ingram, a former colonel, has studied CCTV videos of the blast circulating on line and concluded that, if fully detonated, a bomb that close to the hospital would have “would have blown the windows out, bowed the roof [of the car] and the glass wave would likely have killed both and put hospital windows out”.

The most likely explosives, the former intelligence expert added, are hard to make work because “unless you know what you are doing then they don’t go bang”. The film appears to show some initial pressure build up in the car, but it was not significant, as the driver of the taxi was able to open the door and escape a few seconds later.

Police believe the explosive device was built by the male passenger in the taxi, who was killed in the blast. “Our enquiries indicate that an improvised explosive device has been manufactured and our assumption so far is that this was built by the passenger in the taxi,” said Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson.

Improvised homemade explosives, such as TATP, can often be unstable, and it is possible that it could have been set off by a knock or extra heat, Ingram added. It is not clear if the hospital was the intended target of the bomb, but police have said the passenger asked to be driven there.

Army ordinance disposal officers were on the scene of the incident to assist police. Ingram said they will already have been able to determine using chemical residue testing what the nature of the explosive was.

The last terrorist bombing incident in the UK was in 2017. An improvised explosive device was detonated in September that year on a packed tube train at Parsons Green during the morning rush hour. It misfired but nevertheless injured 22 people.

Reporters from PA have been speaking to neighbours of the arrested suspects.

Neighbour Sharon Cullen said she thought four men aged about in their 20s lived at the address in Sutcliffe Street.

She said: “I don’t know any of them but one them always seemed to be on a PC in his bedroom.”

Cullen said she and her husband, 22-year-old daughter and two-year-old grandson were evacuated from their home at about 9.45pm on Sunday.

She said: “The police pounded on my door and an officer said ‘we need to get you out of the house as soon as possible’.

“They said ‘whatever is going on at the back of the house, it could blow the block’.

“It was really frightening.”

Boris Johnson will chair an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday afternoon in response to the terrorist attack at Liverpool Women’shospital, Downing Street has said.

Asked on BBC News about the risk of people producing homemade bombs, Aldworth said the police “have become very good at reporting suspicious purchases of flammable materials”.

He said it is now much more difficult to make large explosive devices, such as those made in the past by the IRA, since “there are now rules around the sales and storage” of chemicals such as farms fertilisers.

Instead, increasingly terrorists use a large number of people to buy lots of small purchases to circumvent the rules, he said.

Nick Aldworth, the UK’s former counter-terrorism national co-ordinator, is analysing what police and security investigators will be focusing on that moment.

He told BBC News that what he had seen suggested it was either a “a low yield explosive” or “an intentionally incendiary advice or a much greater explosive that has failed to detonate”.

He added that lots of these devices are unstable and can cause fires without being detonated.

He added that “despite the intense fire that followed on from that explosion there are likely to be residual items of evidence” for example shrapnel or nuts and bolts. There is also likely to be evidence to the addresses where the suspects were based.

After the Manchester Arena bombing, investigators found chemicals used to make the device, which enabled them to determine the size of device and whether there may be any other devices circulating, he said.

He added that people should be especially vigilant in the move to wards Christmas, and that he hoped that this incident had reminded people of the threat of terrorism, which is currently at the “substantial” level in the UK.

More from PA on the arrest of the fourth suspect:

A cordon remains in place outside a terraced house in Sutcliffe Street, Kensington.

A grey Mondeo car parked adjacent is also taped off as uniformed officers continue to guard the front and side alley of the property.

Shortly after 9.10am a young man was put into the back of a police car outside the address.

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