England, 2006 The TV crew from the BBC Look North studio were on hand purely by chance. One minute they were setting up to film a routine interview with a world-famous business consultant, in town to address a national conference; the next they were sprawled on the carpeted floor after an ear-shattering explosion rocked the very foundations of the building.

They were lucky; they were in a convention room at the back of the hotel, with a heavy projection screen between them and the windows, which shattered in the blast and sent lethal shards of glass hurtling in every direction.

It was only when they picked themselves up and ran out onto the quayside that they saw the extent of the damage, and the cost in human lives.

The bomber had chosen to detonate his device at the very centre of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. The steel structure was pitted and scarred and dented from one side to the other; it looked as though a huge hand had punched into the tubular sections with ferocious power.

On both sides of the Tyne, the multi-windowed buildings, the pride of Newcastle and Gateshead, resembled nothing more than those in a war zone. Every huge window in the Baltic Art Gallery was gone, destroyed either by the nuts and bolts projected by the ten-pound IED, which had spewed out with the velocity of heavy machine-gun bullets, or by the sheer percussive force of the explosion.

But most terrifying of all were the bodies. The bomber had chosen his moment well. Dozens of businessmen and women, in Newcastle for the first time, had been taking a morning stroll from one side of the bridge to the other, getting some good Tyneside air before their conference began. It was 0830 hours; locals were crossing the bridge on their way to work, just as they did every morning.