A marine police officer stopped searching the Thames for a victim of the London Bridge terror attack after concluding he was "probably lost", an inquest has heard.
Police and lifeboats were deployed to the scene after Xavier Thomas, 45, was hit by the terrorists' hire van and catapulted into the Thames, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Thomas was the first victim of the attack, which ended just under 10 minutes later when three terrorists were shot dead near Borough Market.
The Frenchman's body was not recovered until three days later. He died from immersion in the water.
Police constable Nicholas Bultitude and his crew carried out a "hasty search" having arrived first, some three minutes after reports of a person in the water.
He later diverted away from the more structured search with lifeboats so he could warn crowds on the South Bank of the danger.
Mr Bultitude said it was not practicable to seek approval for the move but there was evidence he informed the coastguard.
Dominic Adamson, representing the family of Mr Thomas, questioned the officer's decision to abandon the river search shortly after gunshots were heard.
He said: "You hear the gunfire at 22.16 and so it would appear that really very shortly after that your attempts were distracted to deal with people on the riverside."
The officer replied: "Yes. So I arrived on the scene. I carried out a search of the river and I was satisfied if anyone was in the river floating on the surface in the vicinity of London Bridge we would have found it.
"When I made the decision, so far as I was concerned, if someone has gone in then tragically they are lost. I made the decision to depart from it."
Mr Adamson asked: "You had already made the determination?"
The witness replied: "Xavier had probably already been lost if there was no-one in the river. That was a factor in my thought process."
The officer told the court conditions were "clear", visibility was "very good" and the tide was almost at its highest point.
Mr Bultitude added: "I'm convinced if Xavier had been on the surface of the river, we would have recovered him."
He insisted the "unfortunately named" hasty search was "not shoddy in any way".
"We covered every inch of that river in a desperate attempt to recover anyone in there," he said.
On Wednesday, Gareth Patterson QC, representing some of the victims, said Mr Thomas and the second victim, Christine Archibald, would not have died if barriers had been put up after the Westminster Bridge attack two months before.
