THE Bournemouth MP who fought in vain to save the life of a police officer in the Westminster terror attack a year ago tomorrow is still haunted by the episode.

Tobias Ellwood went to the aid of PC Keith Palmer, who had been stabbed by terrorist Khalid Masood.

Masood had already driven a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before crashing and abandoning the car. After attacking the unarmed PC, he was shot and killed by a police officer.

The MP for Bournemouth East was near the scene of the stabbing at Parliament’s New Palace Yard and attempted to resuscitate PC Palmer.

“He was alive when I arrived on the scene. That’s what haunts me … when I arrived he was alive and there was a pulse and when I left there wasn’t,” he told a national newspaper.

“I vividly remember the quietness in contrast to the usual busyness, then the helicopter landing, which was really noisy. And then the guys in red turned up – the ones with ‘doctor’ on their uniform – a huge relief.

“I expected the helicopter to take him away but clearly they needed to stabilise him before they could move on. I expected at that point to be told to move away but I was instead told to continue with compressions. I didn’t know when to stop, even when the doctor said he thought we had done everything we could do for him.

“I said, ‘You are going to have to tell me to stop because I am delivering the oxygen to his brain’. And he looked me and called the time of death and said, ‘Thank you. We have done all we can’.

“And then, as the true professionals they are, they picked up all their things and went to help the people on Westminster Bridge.”

Mr Ellwood, a former army captain with the Royal Green Jackets, was then a Foreign Office minister and is now a defence minister.

He lost his brother Jonathan in the Bali bombing of 2002 and believes more should have been done to prevent people turning to Islamic extremism in the years between the attacks.

He said: “The people who killed PC Palmer and my brother have scant understanding of the religion of Islam.”

The Westminster attack also claimed the lives of five people on Westminster Bridge, while more than 50 others were injured, some seriously.

The killer, Khalid Masood, was born Adrian Russell Elms and had grown up in Sussex and Kent before moving to the West Midlands.

He had spent time in prison for grievous bodily harm and possessing an offensive weapon. He had converted to Islam but it was not clear when he had become radicalised.

Mr Ellwood was honoured by the Metropolitan Police for “outstanding bravery” in trying to save PC Palmer.

Theresa May also saluted his courage, adding: “It was in the middle of a terrorist attack, and our right honourable friend is somebody who knows the trauma and tragedy of losing somebody in a terrorist attack.”