Olly Murs insists that shots were fired during Oxford Circus terror scare and hints at cover-up

Mocked: the singer was criticised for spreading fear with his dramatic tweets at the time
Ian West/PA
Tom Powell9 April 2018

Olly Murs has broken his silence on the terror scare in Oxford Circus last year insisting shots were fired and hinting at a possible cover-up.

The pop star, 33, was accused of spreading fear at the time through a series of dramatic tweets sent from within Selfridge’s store.

Reports of an alleged terror attack involving shots fired inside Oxford Circus Tube station sent Black Friday shoppers running for their lives on 24 November.

Murs, who was half a mile away, tweeted to his 8.4 million followers: “'F*** everyone get out of Selfridges now, gun shots! I'm inside.”

But police said there were "no causalities, evidence of any shots fired or any suspects located by officers."

Six months later, the singer has said that he stands by his tweets and hinted at a possible cover-up.

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He told the Sun: “Whether they were shooting into the air, or whatever, something happened that day — whether it was covered up, I don’t know.”

“It’s all a bit murky,” he added.

Murs said he was in Selfridge’s buying a massage chair for his aunt for Christmas when the mass panic broke out.

“One minute I’m sitting there and this guy’s saying, ‘If you press this button you get a massage’ — the next I’m getting thrown against a wall,” he said.

“And then there’s people screaming and running towards exits and I’m thinking, ‘What the f***?’

“I ran for my life thinking ‘Someone’s upstairs shooting.’ The noise of people screaming, it was terrifying.”

He ended up crammed in one of the shop’s back rooms with a group of other shoppers, where people told him they had heard shots fired.

He said: “The manager was in there, other senior people. This woman said ‘Someone was up there shooting, I could see him, in the beauty aisle he had a gun.’

“This girl was saying ‘Don’t tell me I’m lying, I saw this guy with my own eyes’. Whether he shot someone or was shooting in the air — well, obviously he didn’t shoot anyone — but someone saw something.”

Murs was mocked mercilessly when it emerged the incident had been a false alarm. Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan publicly accused him of being irresponsible.

“Stop tweeting mate. Nothing happened,” he wrote.

Murs responded: “If you was there you'd have understood mate.”

But Mr Morgan hit back: “When you have millions of followers be very careful what you tweet.

“There were no shots, in fact nothing happened at all. So you stirred extra needless panic.”

The singer told the Sun he still receives criticism over his tweets that day but still stands by his actions.

A Met Police spokesman said at the time: “At 4.38pm police started to receive numerous 999 calls within a short space of time reporting shots fired in a number of locations on Oxford Street and at Oxford Circus underground station.

“Given the nature of the information received, the Met responded in line with our existing operation as if the incident was terrorism, including the deployment of armed officers.

“Officers working with colleagues from British Transport Police carried out an urgent search of the area. No causalities, evidence of any shots fired or any suspects were located by police.”

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