Gerard Vowls followed trio, shouting and throwing bottles, and tried to draw them towards police

A man followed the three London Bridge attackers, shouting and throwing objects at them in an attempt to lure them into the line of fire for armed police, an inquest has heard.

Gerard Vowls, who had been drinking and watching the Champions League final on the evening of 3 June 2017, said he was trying to prevent them attacking other people by drawing attention to himself. He swore at the three and threw a chair, bottles and glasses at them as he trailed them southwards on Borough High Street, he told an Old Bailey inquest on Tuesday.

Vowls said he first tried to confront the three “not human-looking” attackers when he saw them stabbing a woman 40 to 50 times on Borough High Street. He wiped tears from his eyes as he told the court: “The worst part, that’s what gives me the nightmares [is] she kept saying: ‘Help me, help me.’ I heard one of them say: ‘This is for Allah.’”

He said he initially tried to lift up a bike close by to use as a weapon but it proved too heavy.

“I tried to pull the cage [basket] off so I could throw it at them so they would concentrate on me and leave the girl,” he told the court.

After one of the terrorists spotted him, Vowls said he moved away but then shouted: “You cowards, you cunts, come and get me.”

When the attackers began moving along Borough High Street, he followed at a safe distance.

“I don’t think they were taking any notice of me,” said Vowls. “I think they were sort of jogging left and right looking for the victims so they could attack them.

“I started shouting: ‘Terrorists.’ I was pointing at them, going: ‘Run.’ I was just trying to warn as many people as I could.” He said he screamed at one man to “run, run, look around” but he failed to respond, possibly because he was drunk, and was stabbed in the side.

Vowls followed the three men into Borough Market where he picked up a chair outside Brindisa restaurant and, from a few feet away, threw it at Khuram Butt from close range, as captured on CCTV images shown in court.

“I tried to get him to follow me out on to the main road [so] when the police arrived they would get a good view of them, try to get them away from attacking people,” he said.

Butt followed Vowls briefly but then turned away and the next confrontation was outside the Wheatsheaf pub on Stoney Street.

“I shouted: ‘Terrorist cunts,’ and just started throwing pints and bottles at them,” said Vowls.

He said his intention was “bringing them on to the main road. Armed police would be able to see them and take them down.”

Vowls added: “Because I’d had a few drinks, I was getting near but I was missing everyone.”

He continued following them until he saw them walk inside Black&Blue restaurant on Rochester Walk and stab two people, a man and a woman, despite him waving his arms frantically outside, trying to alert them to the danger.

“I thought there’s nothing I can do, I need to go back and try to find armed police,” Vowls told the inquest.

The next time he saw the three attackers was after he heard gunfire and moved back towards where he had followed them. Butt and his accomplices – Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba – had been shot dead by police.

“I saw the three terrorists lying on the floor dead,” said Vowls. He told the court that police were shouting warnings about the dangers posed by the suicide vests. “I shouted out: ‘It’s fake,’” he said, adding that he had got close enough to see that they had been constructed using canisters and tape.

The eight people killed were Chrissy Archibald, 30, from Canada, Sébastien Bélanger, 36, a French chef, Kirsty Boden, 28, a nurse from Australia, Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría Miralles De Imperial, 39, James McMullan, 32, the only Briton, who was from Brent, north-west London, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, a French restaurant worker, Xavier Thomas, 45, a French national and Sara Zelenak, 21, an Australian national.

The inquest continues.