Royals attend memorial service for London attack victims

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry joined those injured in the deadly March 22 attack and victims' families in a multi-faith service on Wednesday at London's Westminster Abbey.

About 1,800 people joined to take part in the service that was held just metres away from Westminster Bridge, where Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians before stabbing a police officer outside the British Parliament.

"What happened a fortnight ago leaves us bewildered," said the dean of Westminster, John Hall. "What could possibly motivate a man to hire a car and take it from Birmingham to Brighton to London, and then drive it fast at people he had never met, couldn't possibly know, against whom he had no personal grudge, no reason to hate them and then run at the gates of the Palace of Westminster to cause another death? It seems likely that we shall never know."

Police, ambulance workers and firefighters who helped the dying and the injured stood shoulder to shoulder with victims and their loved ones. Among those at the service was injured tourist Melissa Cochran, who arrived in a wheelchair. Her husband Kurt, 54, died in the attack.

The couple, who were visiting from Utah in the U.S., had been celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in London when they were caught up in the 82-second rampage.

The other victims were police constable Keith Palmer, retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, and Aysha Frade, 44.

Police shot dead Masood, 52, after he fatally stabbed Palmer in a courtyard on the Parliament grounds.

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Prince William stopped briefly before the service to lay a wreath of red and white spring flowers at the abbey's Innocent Victims Memorial, a slate circle that remembers those who have suffered death, torture and oppression throughout the world.