Two of the three people killed in attacks in Nottingham this morning were students at the University of Nottingham.
Police declared a “major incident” after two people were found dead in the street in Ilkeston Road just after 4am.
A witness reported seeing a young man and young woman being stabbed there.
Officers were then called to Milton Street, about a mile away, where a van driver had attempted to run over three people.
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A third man was also found dead in nearby Magdala Road.
Police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder and he remains in custody.
Video appears to show a suspect on the ground next to a white van as three officers carry out the arrest on Bentinck Road.
Photos – apparently of the van used in the attack – show small circular cracks at the bottom of the windscreen. There also appears to be damage to the bumper.
A bag can be seen on the road next to the van, but it’s unclear if it belonged to the attacker.
Police said they are keeping an “open mind” over the motive and are not looking for anyone else, but are working alongside terror police as is normal in such a case.
Read more:
A timeline of how ‘major incident’ unfolded
What police will be doing right now after van attack
What we know about the attack so far
Sky News correspondent Becky Johnson reported a “flurry of activity” at around 12.30pm as armed police cut off Ilkeston Road.
She said two young women were eventually put in the back of a marked car after police appeared to enter a commercial property.
Pair ‘stabbed by attacker in black’
A witness told the BBC he saw a young man and young woman being stabbed on Ilkeston Road at around 4am.
The man said he heard “awful, blood-curdling screams” and looked out his window to see a “black guy dressed all in black with a hood and rucksack grappling with some people”.
He told the broadcaster: “She was screaming ‘Help!’ I just wish I’d shouted something out of the window to unnerve the assailant.
“I saw him stab the lad first and then the woman. It was repeated stabbing – four or five times. The lad collapsed in the middle of the road.
“The girl stumbled towards a house and didn’t move. The next minute she had disappeared down the side of a house, and that’s where they found her.
“I’d say it all happened within five or six minutes. The attacker then just walked off up Ilkeston Road towards town, as calm as anything.”
The man said he called the police – who arrived within five minutes – before paramedics tried to revive the pair for 40 minutes.
‘I saw two people on the floor’
Another witness, who gave her name only as Frances, told Sky News she heard a sudden “bang” followed by “screaming” as a white van drove into two people in Nottingham city centre.
She said: “I just got off the bus with around 40 other people and we were walking along Market Square to catch our next bus, crossed over the road at Theatre Royal and got around 10 feet down the road when all of a sudden you heard a bang which sounded like a vehicle hitting a bollard.
“I turned around and then saw the two people on the floor, on the road.
“Someone was screaming, I think a gentleman ran over to help as well.
“Then it just went from there, the police were there straight away, then the ambulance arrived and they got the two people in the ambulance and got them sent off to whichever hospital.”