Ex-classmates: Terror Attacker 'All-round Nice Guy'

25 March 2017, 09:34 | Updated: 25 March 2017, 09:38

Khalid Masood

Kahild Masood, the attacker who drove his car at people walking on Westminster Bridge and then stormed Parliament armed with two knives, has been described as a popular boy and a talented footballer.

Kahild Masood, the attacker who drove his car at people walking on Westminster Bridge and then stormed Parliament armed with two knives, has been described as a popular boy and a talented footballer.

Masood, who was known as Adrian Ajoa when he was a pupil at Huntley Secondary School for Boys in Tunbridge Wells, showed no signs to the violence that was to follow.

Stuart Knight was in the same class as Ajao for five years before they left school in 1981.

Mr Knight, 52, told the Press Association: "He was a very nice guy, down to earth, liked by everyone around him.

"He was a very good sportsman, his mother was a Christian, he was an all-round nice guy.''

Later Masood lived in the East Sussex village of Northiam, near Rye, where he once held a knife to a friend's throat and told him he dreamed of killing someone.

In 2000, he was sentenced to two years in jail following a knife fight outside the Crown and Thistle in the village that left his victim needing 20 stitches to the face.

His then friend Lee Lawrence, 47, tried to pacify Masood that day, but soon found the fury directed at him.

"He had the knife against my throat and he is going, 'I want some blood, I want to kill someone', he told The Telegraph.

"After he calmed down a bit he was saying, 'What have I done? What am I doing? I am going for help, I just want blood or I want to kill someone'.

"He said he was having help, some kind of anger management.''

Mr Lawrence says Masood enjoyed his reputation as a fearsome man and displayed a violent temper. He told the Sun: "He wasn't stupid. He was very articulate and intelligent, but when he got angry he would just snap and became a different person. It was terrifying.''