One Spanish national, one Briton, two Australians, one Canadian and three French citizens died in the attack and nearly 50 people were injured. An inquest into the deaths of the victims began on Tuesday at the Old Bailey court in London.
The court is to examine why there were no barriers to protect pedestrians on the bridge at the time and how the ringleader Khuram Butt was able to plan and carry out the attack while under investigation by MI5.
Butt was released by the police 8 months before the attack, despite being actively investigated by MI5 prior to June 2017, following reports of aspirations to conduct an attack — a report by the Intelligence and Security Committee revealed in November 2018.
Similarly, MI5 came under fire for letting the perpetrator of the Manchester Arena bombing, Salman Abedi, slip through the cracks, even after he was flagged for review.
Butt, who was was reported to be part of the government's counter-terror strategy — the Prevent programme, and two other attackers, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, were shot dead by police eight minutes after they were summoned.
READ MORE: MI5 Made Mistakes Ahead of Manchester Bombing — Report
'Barbarians'
The London Bridge attack inquest heard detailed stories about all the victims, including their location and how they came to face their attackers.
One of the victims, Xavier Thomas, 45, was hit by the attackers' van as he was walking on London Bridge.
His father called the attackers "barbarians, who can in no way be described as humans."
"With such an emotional shock we have been totally devastated in the way he has been taken from us. We all feel lost and are experiencing a great void without Xavier," Thomas's father said during the inquest.
Eighth victim of #London terror attack identified as Xavier Thomas https://t.co/EjjBqH8XOL pic.twitter.com/YttF8TiEit
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 9, 2017
"I hope this inquest will provide answers to the obvious and understandable questions that the families of those that died have", Judge Mark Lucraft said on Tuesday.
The inquest is said to establish the failure of security checks during the hire of rental vehicles, given that lorries and cars had been previously used in several terror attacks in Europe.
