Miriam Walker-Khan, 23, was in Westminster during the terror attack (Picture: BBC)

A mixed-race student who witnessed the Westminster terror attack in March has described how police demanded to know if she shaved intimate parts of her body.

Miriam Walker-Khan, a 23-year-old journalism trainee who has part-Pakistani heritage, was part of a group visiting Parliament when terrorist Khalid Masood killed four pedestrians with his car and stabbed a policeman to death.

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After giving a statement to the police at the scene, she was visited at her home in Sheffield several days later by two counter-terrorism detectives who asked personal questions.

She said: ‘The first question was to describe my “ethnic appearance”, and I thought, “What on earth is an ethnic appearance? That doesn’t really exist”.




‘They then asked me to describe my body hair – the options were shaved, waxed, hairy and trimmed. At that point, I said: “Why are these questions on a form that is like a witness statement?”‘

Armed police shot Khalid Masood after he stabbed policeman Keith Palmer to death in Parliament (Picture: PA Wire)

One of the detectives, who was from West Yorkshire Police but working on behalf of The Met, allegedly replied: ‘Oh we just ask everyone.’

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There have been instances of Jihadis shaving their pubic hair and armpits to purify themselves before carrying out terror attacks.

Ms Walker-Khan, who is now working for the BBC, was shocked when she discovered that none of the other students who were with her that day were interviewed by police

She told the BBC: ‘Those questions were so degrading, and the fact that I had been contacted when no one else had. I just felt like I was being treated like a criminal.’

Miriam Walker-Khan has now got a job with the BBC (Picture:Twitter/mimwalkerkhaN)

Lecturer David Holmes, who had brought the group to London, confirmed she was the only student to be interviewed.

He said: ‘I understand why she was left troubled by the whole experience.’

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West Yorkshire Police confirmed two detectives interviewed Ms Walker-Khan, but added that a formal complaint had not been made.

A Scotland Yard spokesman told Metro.co.uk: ‘The Met and officers from across the UK have dealt with over 4800 witnesses involved in the Westminster attack. We have not received a complaint from any of these witnesses.

‘Clearly, in the case of the Westminster attack, personal or intimate descriptions would not be relevant and therefore such questions would have been a genuine isolated error.’