For two days, the people of Nottingham have struggled to comprehend Tuesday’s brutal attack in the city centre that left three dead. 

Desperate to find some small way to pay tribute to Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates, people flocked to lay flowers at the place they were killed and at the Council House, queuing up to leave their sympathies in a condolence book. 

Tonight, they come together to offer their support to the families of the three innocent people whose lives were brutally taken in the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

At a vigil on the Old Market Square, people have gathered to hear speeches from the Lord Mayor, Carole McCulloch and Leader of the Council, David Mellen. 

The vigil, councillor Mellen has said, is to be “a chance for people to come together to mourn and to show the world how Nottingham takes a stand against violence”. 

They are joined by Shearer West, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, where two of the victims were students and, it emerged today, from where the attacker had recently graduated. 

People of all ages have come to pay their respects, many of them parents who are feeling this tragedy keenly. A card on a bouquet of flowers outside the hall reads: “From all the parents and all the hard working people of Nottingham.” 

Another reads: “To lives cut short - only love.”