We’re so lucky to be alive, say couple just metres away from taxi bombing

A couple who were only metres away from the Liverpool hospital explosion today told how they have been left in shock and traumatised by their experience, as police and MI5 continued to investigate the bomber’s background.

Liam Spencer and Stephanie Stitt, who were in their car when Emad Al Swealmeen’s device went off, said they initially thought there had been a crash after hearing a “big impact” and seeing debris flying over their vehicle.

Ms Stitt said she still felt like an “emotional wreck”, while Mr Spencer, who branded Al Swealmeen as “a coward”, said he was constantly worrying about “what if” the couple had been closer to the taxi explosion. Mr Spencer, 21, who tried to rescue the bomber, said: “Explosions just went off and it shook the hospital building. Then I got closer to the car, I could smell the smoke and I could see the man in the back.

“I went to grab him but he was engulfed in flames very quickly. I couldn’t reach hold of him without setting myself on fire.” Ms Stitt, a trainee mental health nurse, said she feels “very lucky to be alive”.

The couple’s graphic account, in a BBC interview, came as hospital security guard Darren Knowles also spoke for the first time about Sunday’s attack, at Liverpool Women’s Hospital just before 11am.

Mr Knowles told how he rushed to help taxi driver David Perry, who had driven Al Swealmeen to the hospital, after he miraculously escaped from his mangled and smoke-filled vehicle before it was consumed by flames. He told the Daily Mirror that Mr Perry was “panicking and screaming” and shouting: “Someone has blown me up. I want my wife.”

Mr Knowles added: “He was trying to tell us ‘There is a passenger, there is a passenger’. I was trying to say to him ‘Is he still in there?’ and he was saying ‘He has tried to blow me up’.”

Iraq-born Al Swealmeen, 32, who was a Christian convert, died in the explosion while Mr Perry escaped with injuries.

Police have disclosed how Al Swealmeen had been buying bomb-making materials since at least April and that a “complex picture” is emerging about his preparations.

No clear motive has been established yet, while police are also trying to assess how much the bomber’s mental health problems might have contributed to his terrorist attack.

Al Swealmeen, who lost an asylum application made in 2014 when he claimed to be Syrian, had lodged an appeal under a new identity, Enzo Almeni, which was pending at the time of his attack.