There were ‘opportunities galore’ to notice that the London Bridge terrorists were planning a deadly rampage, an inquest has heard.

Gareth Patterson QC, representing several victims’ families, outlined a number of instances where the three extremists were together along with a series of clues suggesting they might have been plotting an attack.

He also said ‘there is evidence’ that all three attackers were in contact with each other in January 2017 and told the Old Bailey it would have taken a ‘significant period of time’ for the trio to become so close and to trust each other.

Mr Patterson added: ‘There were opportunities galore for this attack planning to be picked up prior to the beginning.’

Eight people were killed and 48 injured when Butt, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, launched a van and knife attack on June 3 2017.

The victims were Xavier Thomas, 45, Christine Archibald, 30, Sara Zelenak, 21, Sebastien Belanger, 36, James McMullan, 32, Kirsty Boden, 28, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, and Ignacio Echeverria, 39.

The court heard that in March all three attackers were at the Ummah fitness centre in east London and had all been at the same address at one point.

Mr Patterson said Butt and Redouane had been in contact with each other ‘again and again for months’.

He said Redouane purchased three identical knives a day after attending a barbecue at Butt’s home in May, just days before the attack.

‘Any reasonably competent investigation should have been looking at Redouane at this stage, I would submit,’ he said.

But investigating officer acting detective chief inspector Wayne Jolley told the court that ‘would depend on the intelligence at the time’.

The inquest heard Zaghba had been going to Butt’s gym since January and had also been in telephone contact with him since that time.

He had also been at Butt’s home and was allowed to drive his car.

Mr Patterson said: ‘All of these things, when pulled together, I would suggest, is crying out to be looked at.’

All three men were at the gym together in May ‘in the dead of night, speaking together in the street in what Mr Patterson described as a ‘highly suspicious conversation’ after placing a telephone on the ground and walking away.

He described this as a ‘classic anti-surveillance technique’ and suggested ‘the attack planning was there to be detected’.

Mr Patterson added: ‘A reasonably competent surveillance, I would suggest, would have had Butt monitored up to that point.’

The inquest heard Butt’s home was searched by police a year before the attack following in connection with a fraud allegation.

But detectives did not seize all of his computers or find radical material that was stored on the digital devices.

He had also ‘gone quiet all of a sudden’ by ditching his smartphone and attempted to take out a £14,000 loan in the weeks leading up to the atrocity.

The court was also told that Zaghba had held extremist views from childhood.

He celebrated the 9/11 attacks in the US and had Islamic State flags on his Facebook page, according to writings by his mother.

Zaghba also tried to fly abroad to fight for IS, and Jihadist material was found on an SD card which was seized from him when he was stopped by Italian border force officers at an airport.

The hearing was told this included images of IS flags, scenes where he was joking about al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, and an online piece about a verse in the Koran which says that non-believers will go to hell.

However, the material was never shared with British authorities until after the attack.

The inquest continues.

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