CHILLING footage of the first London Bridge terror victim walking hand in hand with his fiancé seconds before terrorists ploughed into him was shown at an inquest today.
Xavier Thomas, 44, was killed when a van smashed into him, catapulting him into the River Thames, where he drowned.
The Frenchman was found three days later, with his cause of death given as immersion.
His girlfriend, Christine Delcros, 46, who was badly injured, told the inquest she had a “premonition” they would be killed by terrorists.
CCTV played at the inquest today shows the lovers walking across the bridge moments before the terror gang struck, killing eight people.
The footage shows them strolling towards the north bank of the Thames that night.
Ms Delcros told the court she and her boyfriend Mr Thomas had been in London for a weekend of sightseeing on June 3 when they decided to walk to the Shard for a cocktail.
Breaking down in tears at the inquest today, Ms Delcros said: “I had so many premonitions about terror attacks from the day before and I could feel it.”
She said her boyfriend had planned out their night to get a view of the capital but she started to feel something was “not normal” as they walked across the bridge.
She relived: “Suddenly I was under the impression there was a lot of light and a van that mounted the pavement in the exact fashion to make sure they were not going to miss us.
“I just heard myself say to myself, ‘that’s how one dies, that’s it’.”
I had so many premonitions about terror attacks from the day before and I could feel it
Christine Delcros
Crying, she went on: “I thought that I had died, that the curtain had fallen. To me I was dead. I said to myself that’s how one dies and I have no recollection of the crash.
“It was only light when I woke up.”
She told the Old Bailey when she regained consciousness she immediately started to ask for her boyfriend, who she said she was “madly in love with”.
The witness said she was in a lot of pain and felt like she was going into light.
She added: “I could hear some voices, I was no longer there.
“I had my whole head with me but I was no longer using my body. I was going. I thought I would never get out of that light. I would stay there for ever.”
BBC journalist Holly Jones went to help Ms Delcros after jumping out of the path of the van and told police to check the water for her boyfriend.
Describing the moment a “demented” driver headed towards her, Ms Jones said: “Immediately I just froze. It was a feeling I described as like being punched into the chest.
“There was a lady in front of me walking towards me. She had headphones on so she was not aware of any of this.
“I remember being stood frozen in fear. Something in the back of my mind told me to get out of the way. I jumped to the right towards the railings.
“At that point the van went past me. I could feel the wind of the van directly behind.”
But in a message to the terrorists, she added: “Those who did this try to separate us but they did the opposite. We are not victims of terror, we are survivors.”
Another witness Mark Roberts, who was setting up photographs of Tower Bridge from London Bridge, said it looked like the van was “deliberately” steering towards people.
He told the court one woman was thrown into the air “like a rag doll”.
After the van ploughed through crowds on the bridge, Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Zaghba, 22, got out with 12in knives strapped to their hands with duct tape and wearing fake suicide belts.
They ran amok around Borough Market, killing six more people and injuring 48.
They were stopped by police marksmen who shot them dead less than 10 minutes after the rampage began.
The inquest continues.
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