A convicted murderer out on day release was among the bystanders who rushed to help during the London Bridge terror attack.

James Ford, 42, is thought to have tried to save the life of a female victim and helped disarm convicted terrorist Usman Khan, who stabbed a man and a woman to death and injured several others on Friday.

Ford was jailed for life in 2004 for the murder of 21-year-old Amanda Champion, who had a mental age of 15.

Ms Champion was found by a walker strangled and with her throat cut on wasteland in Ashford, Kent, on 26 July 2003 – three weeks after she disappeared.

Ford was eventually arrested after a Samaritans worker, who was later sacked, broke the vow of anonymity to tell police he had called the charity and confessed to him.

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He admitted to the murder in court but has never revealed any motive for killing Ms Champion.

The convicted murderer, who is understood to be serving the final days of his sentence at HMP Standford Hill, an open prison in Kent, was on London Bridge as the attack unfolded on Friday.

James Ford, who was jailed for like in 2004 for the 'motiveless' murder of 21-year-old Amanda Champion in Ashford, Kent. (Kent Police)

He had been attending a Learning Together conference for prisoner rehabilitation at the Fishmongers’ Hall while on day release earlier that day. Khan had been at the same event.

But despite Ford’s actions, the family of his victim say he is no hero.

Ms Champion’s aunt, Angela Cox, said she was informed of Ford’s day release by a police liaison officer on Friday.

She told the Daily Mail: “He is a murderer out on day release, which us as a family didn’t know anything about. He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero, absolutely not.”

She added: “I don’t care what he’s done today, he’s a murderer.”

Khan, 28, was attending the University of Cambridge-associated Learning Together event at Fishmongers’ Hall when he reportedly “threatened to blow up” the building just before 2pm on Friday, The Times reports.

Armed with two knives and wearing a fake suicide vest, he killed a man and a woman and injured three other people before being tackled by members of the public and then shot dead by police on London Bridge.

Video footage posted online shows Khan being wrestled to the ground by several members of the public as one man sprays him with a fire extinguisher and another lunges towards him with a narwhal tusk, believed to have been taken from a wall inside Fishmongers’ Hall.

Khan, who was imprisoned six years for terrorism offences before his release last year stabbed several people in London on Friday, Nov. 29 (AP)

A man carrying a large knife can be seen backing away from the scene seconds before an officer drags away another man still attempting to restrain the suspect. The suspect is then shot by police.

It later emerged Khan was a convicted terrorist who was released less than seven years into a 16-year prison sentence for plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange.

London Bridge was one of the scenes of a terror attack in June 2017 – also during a general election campaign – when eight victims were killed along with the three terrorists, who were armed with knives and wearing fake suicide vests.