Cub Scout leader talks down killer

A mother of two described last night how she put her life on the line by trying to persuade the terrorists to hand over their weapons.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a cub scout leader, talked with the killers and kept her nerve as one of them told her: "We want to start a war in London tonight."

Mrs Loyau-Kennett (48), from Cornwall in England, was one of the first people on the scene after the two killers butchered a soldier in Woolwich yesterday.

She was photographed by onlookers confronting one of the attackers, who was holding a bloodied knife (left).

Mrs Loyau-Kennett was a passenger on a bus travelling past the scene and jumped off to check the soldier's pulse.

"Being a cub leader I have my first aid," she said. "And then when I went up there was this black guy with a revolver and a knife.

"He had what looked like butcher's tools and he had a little axe, to cut the bones, and two large knives and he said: 'Move off the body.' So I thought: 'Okay, I don't know what's going on here.'

"He was covered with blood. I thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking somebody else. I thought these people usually have a message so I said: What do you want?'

"I asked him if he did it and he said yes, and I said why? And he said because he has killed Muslims.

"He said: 'I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. They have nothing to do there?'"

"He was not high, he was not on drugs, he was not an alcoholic or drunk. He was just distressed, upset. He was in full control.

"I said: 'Right, now it is only you versus many people, you are going to lose, what would you like to do?' He said: 'I would like to stay and fight.'?"

Mrs Loyau-Kennett was not the only woman to show extraordinary courage in Woolwich.

Others shielded the soldier's body as the killers stood over them.

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