Police intercepted the Reading terror suspect on the street just hours before he allegedly went on the rampage, the Daily Mail revealed.
A specialist mental health team was asked to search for Khairi Saadallah after officials failed to find him during a routine check at his home last Friday.
Later that evening, just before midnight, he was found on a street in Reading, sources disclosed.
Saadallah is believed to have then been taken home to his council flat in the south of the town – and just hours later is alleged to have stabbed three men to death as they sat in a local park, Forbury Gardens.
Several police and psychiatric nurses, known as a ‘street triage’ team run jointly by Thames Valley Police and the NHS, encountered the 25-year-old Libyan after an alert was raised as part of his psychiatric care, sources said.
It came as a former Labour justice minister revealed in the Commons that Saadallah had been released from prison just 16 days before being arrested over the terror attack.
Maria Eagle said: “The person who has been arrested suspected of these offences has been reported as being of interest to the security services as a potential terrorist sympathiser and was released well before the end of his sentence from a prison – a mere 16 days before this murderous rampage took place.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel said she was unable to comment given the police investigation, but it will raise further concerns that the authorities missed opportunities to prevent Saturday’s knife attacks.
Official documents seen by the Mail show Saadallah was under the care of psychiatric specialists.
One said: “He has various mental health issues and a history of debt and homelessness, as well as alcohol and substance misuse, and is aggressive and unpredictable.
“A psychiatric report dated May 21, 2019, from Dr Hasanen Al Taiar, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, concluded that he showed features of post-traumatic stress disorder and of emotionally unstable personality disorder.”
In one encounter with the police in November 2018, officers found Saadallah on a bridge where he threatened to throw himself off, the official documents show.
On a later date he was taken into police custody after being found “very drunk”.
On that occasion he was given a piece of paper in the custody suite to explain his rights, which he used as toilet paper.
The Home Office is also likely to face renewed scrutiny over its handling of Saadallah’s asylum application.
He was granted five years’ leave to remain in this country on humanitarian grounds in 2018.
Critics called on the Home Office and the ministry of justice to reveal exactly how Saadallah’s case was handled – and whether tougher enforcement could have helped save three lives.
If any individual – including anyone with leave to remain in this country – commits a crime which is punished with 12 months or more in prison, they are liable for automatic deportation.
Exceptions apply, including a range of claims under human rights laws such as the ‘right to private and family life’. Conservative MP Lee Anderson said in the Commons: “There is something wrong if an individual has come into this country illegally and been granted asylum and then goes on to be a security risk.”
One criminal justice source said: “There are some pretty serious questions for the Home Office and the ministry of justice here. We desperately need clarity about what happened in this case.’