Sir David Amess's aide shares what happened on the day he was murdered

Sir David Amess' former aide Julie Cushion still finds her heart 'missing a few beats' when a member of the public asks to use the lavatory at weekly constituency surgeries. Two years ago, fanatical terrorist Ali Harbi Ali did just that before fatally stabbing the much-loved 69-year-old Conservative MP for Southend West.

Julie, who worked for Sir David for seven years, was there at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea on that terrible October day in 2021.

She still remembers 'an horrendous scream', the paralysing shock and the 'point at which I knew he'd gone'. But mostly, she racks her brain trying to think whether she 'could have done anything differently'.

'You keep thinking if I'd done A or B or C would it not have happened?' says Julie, now constituency manager for Sir David's successor, Anna Firth. 'I don't know. Probably not, but you keep thinking of all these things. What if I hadn't done this or that? What if I hadn't shown him [Ali] to the toilet?

'I'm absolutely convinced that was when he prepared himself for what he was going to do. So now, I still get...' She takes a deep breath.