A hero police officer who helped clear passengers from a blown-up train on the 7/7 terrorist attacks has been awarded an MBE.

British Transport Police Detective Constable Antonio Silvestro, 45, from Stoneleigh, was the first officer at the scene in Aldgate Tube Station, at 8.50am, immediately after the explosion. He was chosen along other heroes from the 2005 London bombings to receive the New Year’s honour.

In an exclusive interview with the Epsom Guardian DC Silvestro said: “I feel very honoured to receive an MBE, but I don’t understand why me when there were so many people helping out that day in that tunnel like underground staff, other officers and emergency services,” he said.

He said: “I was in my office working on my computer and just heard a loud bang and the building really did shake. My initial thought was that, because we’re a one way system, something had driven into the building, so I rushed down the stairs and everybody was looking into the station.

“When I got there I identified myself as a police officer - I am a plain clothes police officer and I was in plain clothes - and pushed through.”

The officer entered the tube tunnel after someone shouted there were people in it. “There was a number of underground staff with high visibility vests, so I said ‘give us your vest’ and grabbed a torch off him,” said DC Silvestro.

As he walked down the smoke-filled tunnel, he saw commuters walking along the line with their clothes ripped and hair up. “You know that Michael Jackson video Thriller? With people walking with their hair sticking out and white eyes?

“There was people coming through like that. They were like zombies walking out. So I just shouted ‘police, police, keep going’.”

As he reached the train, the father-of-three then started helping other passengers out of the bombed carriage. “The doors were ripped off and there was mangled metal everywhere, and people screaming.

“As I looked into the carriage there was a couple. They were sat down and directly across them there was this female, and she was being kept up by another woman who I eventually found out was a doctor.”

When other police officers arrived he walked the length of the train to ensue everyone was out. He then returned to keep company to another injured passenger who had been badly hurt on her legs and was waiting for paramedics to remove her from the tunnel.

DC Silvestro left the Aldgate Station tunnel at 12.30pm, after all the passengers had been rescued, including the woman he comforted before the paramedics arrived, who lost one of her legs, but survived her injuries.