A “major incident” in Nottingham has been described as a “traumatic night for everybody involved” by Sky’s policing analyst.

Graham Wettone said: “Police officers get calls like this every day about people being injured, so you are never quite sure what you are going to find.

“There’s loads of stuff on social media already, that will form part of the line of investigation.”

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Police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of murder and he remains in police custody after three people were found dead after an apparent van attack in the centre of Nottingham.

Investigators will be “trawling through social media accounts, witness accounts that have been posted onto social media, and just looking to see what evidence there is available, working through all possible options to see what’s caused this, what’s motivated this incident”, Mr Wettone said.

He said: “People’s perception of what they see in front of them can be very different.

“But it sounds like they have encountered a horrific incident in the early hours of the morning, and then a second incident, and possibly even a third.

“So it’s a traumatic night for everybody involved.”

‘Officers will be at suspect’s house’

Police were called to Ilkeston Road just after 4am where two people were found dead in the street.

Officers were then called to another incident in Milton Street where a van had attempted to run over three people. They are currently being treated in hospital.

A man has also been found dead in Magdala Road.

Former Metropolitan Police officer Simon Harding said officers would be looking at “the risk of further offences” being committed.

He told Sky News: “There will be an enormous amount of work going on in the background… there will be officers linking in from other organisations such as counter-terrorism to understand if this is in any way linked to that.

“The main thing you want to do is get to the suspect’s house, understand his associates, understand if there is any other risk associated with him and his actions today.”

He said the police cordon remained vast – and would only be brought in after the understanding that everything “is under control”.

“Scenes of this nature can take an enormous amount of time. Once they understand where those scenes really are concentrated in they’ll start to bring in those cordons to try and bring Nottingham back to some sort of normality,” he said.

“That won’t be done until they are absolutely sure that they’ve got what they need and every bit of forensic evidence has been obtained and witnesses have been identified, CCTV that could help the enquiry to understand if there is anybody else involved, and all those sorts of things have been done.”

Immediately after the call was received and officers were on site, he said the “main priority” would have been to save the lives of any victims.

“Then you want to try and get to those families as quickly as possible as well,” he added.

‘I knew something quite major was happening’

Throughout the morning, several eyewitnesses shared their experiences.

Glen Gretton said he was woken up at around 5am on Tuesday morning by the sounds of a series of police cars passing his home.

The 46-year-old delivery driver, who lives in a flat in Mansfield Road in Sherwood, said: “I heard a police car go past. It was driving extremely quickly, followed by another one, another one.

“They just kept coming so I knew something quite major… was happening somewhere around the city centre.”

On Twitter, user Robbie Paul-Stone wrote that he saw someone “being treated on the side of the road”.

“I didn’t see any cars. It’s also closed by Theatre Royal but couldn’t see anything (that was about 7.15am),” he wrote.

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