7/7 survivor was ‘deeply lucky’

Michael Henning, seen shortly after the 2005 attack, was badly injured

A survivor of the 7/7 attacks has told an inquest into the bombings that he is a “deeply lucky person”.

Michael Henning was only yards from Shehzad Tanweer when he detonated a device on a Circle line train at Aldgate Tube station.

He said he was lucky to survive after choosing to get on the third carriage instead of the second carriage, where Tanweer was standing.

Some of the families of those killed have also given testimonies.

The inquests into the 52 deaths in 2005 are expected to take up to five months.

Mr Henning described the blast, saying it felt “completely real to me now as I speak”.

He added: “I can feel the right-hand side of my face because I was standing right on to the explosion. I can feel it tense up now, I can feel heat. It’s extremely real.

“One moment you had the sense of reality as you know it, your everyday Tube travel, and the next, it’s all changed.

“I remember the questions in my head – ‘What is this? What is this?’ – as I’m being twisted and thrown down to the ground and then I realised it was a bomb. It’s strange the thoughts that go through your mind, but I think it was one of those completely British understatements, ‘Oh, this isn’t good’.”

Mr Henning told the inquest he thought he had died until he felt blood on the right side of his face, caused by flying glass.

He said he then heard screams from seriously injured people in the second carriage and when he looked to see if he could help, saw a horrifying sight.

“I looked through the twisted windows to see the darkness and I could see people moving slowly in pain,” he said.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail about what I saw because I know the police reports have detailed such things, but it is a very difficult image to hold.”

One of the family members to give evidence was the father of 24-year-old Carrie Taylor, who was visibly moved as he spoke of his youngest child.

John Taylor recalled how his daughter, a drama and theatre student at Royal Holloway, University of London, particularly loved Russian plays, something the rest of the family “never grasped”.

He added: “It was Carrie’s dream to work in the arts and this is something that we always encouraged.”

He told the inquest she would return to the family home in Billericay, Essex, every weekend.

“She had friends from a variety of backgrounds. It was a mark of her temperament that she didn’t have any prejudices and always found the best in people,” he said.

The mother of Lee Baisden said her son had hoped to marry his partner before he was killed in the Aldgate blast.

Lee Baisden had planned to marry his partner but was killed in the blast

Denise Baisden read a statement to the inquest on behalf of his family and former boyfriend, saying her son would be “greatly missed”.

Mr Baisden, 34, from Romford in Essex, an accountant for the London Fire Brigade, was one of the seven who died on the Circle line train.

Mrs Baisden said: “Lee was one of a kind. He was loyal, sensitive, trustworthy and caring.

“He planned to get married to his partner Paul Groman and he enjoyed life to the full. He will be greatly missed by all and his loss has left a massive hole in all our lives.”

Italian Benedetta Ciaccia, 30, was two months away from her wedding day when she was killed, her father told the inquest.

In a statement read to the court, Roberto Ciaccia said his daughter, a business analyst from Norwich, “was a beautiful, sweet, Italian girl who greatly loved life.

“All she worked for was to have a family of her own with many children which she really loved.”

She had also just completed a part-time degree course in IT but died before she could find out her results.

Richard Ellery, 21, who worked for Jessops camera store in Ipswich, near his home, was on his way to a training course at the firm’s Kensington branch when he was caught in the Aldgate blast.

Statements read to the inquests referred to him as being a “footloose and fancy-free type of guy”.

A statement read out from one of his flatmates said: “He had a great sense of humour and was quick-witted. The only time he was grumpy was in the morning.”

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