Convicted murderer James Ford, 42, was on day release from prison when he saw the attack unfolding and rushed to help during the chaos. According to British media reports, Ford had attended the same prisoner rehabilitation event
as 28-year-old attacker Usman Khan, a convicted Islamist terrorist, who killed two people before being shot dead by police.
"He is not a hero. He is a murderer out on day release, which us as a family didn't know anything about. He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero, absolutely not," Amanda's aunt, Angela Cox, told the
Daily Mail on Friday. "I don't care what he's done today, he's a murderer," she said.
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Ford in 2004 was jailed for life in the 2003 slaying of Champion, who, though 21, had the mental age of a 15-year-old. A judge recommended that he serve a minimum sentence of 15 years behind bars.
According to the BBC, Champion was strangled by Ford before he slit her throat. Her badly decomposed body was found close to her home in Kent, England, three weeks after her disappearance. At the news of her death, her family said: "We're not the family we were; we never will be any more."