Bomb victim completes peace walk

Gill Hicks lost both legs in a bomb blast at King's Cross station

A woman who lost both legs in the 7 July bombings on London's transport network has completed a 250-mile walk she hopes will help unite communities.

Gill Hicks, 38, took 30 days to walk from Leeds to London, stopping in 22 towns and cities along the way.

Her Walktalk project aimed to help people of different faiths and communities to engage with each other.

Arriving in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, she said a "belief in humanity" helped her complete the journey.

Mrs Hicks, who has had to use prosthetic limbs since she was maimed by a bomb at King's Cross station in 2005, walked up to ten miles a day accompanied by a group of supporters.

She began the Walktalk in Leeds as three of the four suicide bombers, who killed 52 people and injured nearly 800, had links with the city.

I never gave up because of the people that never gave up on me Gill Hicks Walk and talk for hope

The walk first headed to the Beeston area, where bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain lived and where their leader, Mohammed Sidique Khan, had many connections.

At the end of her month-long trek, she said: "All of us stepped into this journey with great faith and great belief that humanity would carry us through from town to town and that's exactly what happened.

"For me to walk from Leeds to London is probably the single most difficult thing I could ever have imagined.

"I still can't quite believe that I have achieved it but I never gave up because of the people that never gave up on me."

Her husband, Joe Kerr, 48, said: "We've come on a small journey in the scale of things, but a large journey for us, of hope, of optimism, of reconciliation.

"The journey to build a better and fairer and more equitable society is a journey we must all continue on relentlessly and continue on together.

"We can build a society that's based on mutual respect, that respects difference but recognises our common humanity."