Lancashire-based student who survived Westminster terror attack still receives abuse from online trolls

Travis Frain, 24, was on a university trip to London aged 19 with his friends when Khalid Masood struck him in a car on March 22 2017.

He flew into the air after hitting the bonnet of the vehicle, suffering a broken leg and and numerous other injuries including a shrapnel wound and broken fingers.

Recalling the day ahead of its fifth anniversary, he told the PA news agency he initially thought the attacker had lost control behind the wheel.

But the sound of gunshots made him realise the “sinister” nature of the incident.

Despite his injuries, Mr Frain managed to pick himself up and hobble away before being taken to King’s College Hospital.

“It could have been the adrenaline, could have been the shock. All I know is bizarrely I was up and walking after I was hit by the car,” he said.

“That’s something that even today I don’t have an explanation for.”

Footage of him walking away from the scene surfaced online, apparently sparking a torrent of misinformation, abuse and death threats from people accusing him of faking his injuries.

Mr Frain revealed the abuse has persisted over the past five years, with the last message being sent as recently as November.

“YouTube was littered with all these sorts of debunking videos saying that I’d faked my involvement or my injuries… and we were all paid actors,” he said.

Mr Frain said: “You’ve received quite bad injuries, you’re immobile. Then to be receiving threatening messages like that is incredibly disconcerting. It’s a really bizarre situation.”

He added: “I think a lot of the people who are sending these messages might already be off the deep end so to speak.

“But I’d just say to them ‘get in touch’ and I’d say ‘let’s have a conversation about it’… Rather than sitting behind anonymous accounts on the internet and sending dodgy messages to people who, quite frankly, don’t know how to respond to them.

He said despite the challenges, he has managed to make progress in coming to terms with the atrocity by educating himself about the complex causes of terrorism.

But he added that the impact of the atrocity “never leaves” him, and warned that extremism remains one of the biggest threats to the UK.

“Five years sounds like a very long time, but in many ways, it feels like it was yesterday,” he said, speaking near Westminster Bridge on Monday (March 21).

“I think to be honest with you, it never leaves you.”

The Lancashire-based PhD student has now set up the Resilience in Unity Project, a counter-radicalisation platform featuring the voices of terrorism survivors, the response to which he said has been “terrific”.

Some 60 testimonies have been recorded so far from people who have volunteered to share their experiences with the hope of helping to prevent future attacks, he said.

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