A woman who lost her son the July 7 London bombings yesterday called on the mother of her son's killer to "stand side by side" with her and condemn suicide attacks.

Marie Fatayi-Williams, aged 51, lost her son Anthony, a 26-year-old oil executive with Amec, when Hasib Hussain detonated his rucksack bomb on a bus in Tavistock Square.

Speaking on the eve of the first anniversary of the bomb-ings, Mrs Fatayi-Williams appealed to Hussain's mother, Maniza, to join her in public to denounce extremism.

She said that if Hussain's mother was ready to say that suicide bombing was "wrong and her faith does not allow it" then she would be willing to share a platform with her.

She went on: "Because all I have read about her son is that he was a gentle man, he was peaceful, he would never hurt a fly and that what happened was completely out of character.

"Therefore, his mum would like to immortalise him differently than what he is at present by saying 'I rise up and stand up for what I believe in'.

"If she wants to do that, I am ready to stand side by side with her to proclaim that, to say that young people do not need to strap themselves with bombs to blow other people up."

Mrs Fatayi-Williams was flanked by her husband, Alan, and Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain.

She repeated her call for a public inquiry into the bombings and said: "Lessons must be learnt from where mistakes have been made."

Mrs Fatayi-Williams was speaking at the launch of a book, For The Love Of Anthony, that she has written as a tribute to her son.

She was speaking at the offices of the British Medical Association in Tavistock Square, just yards from where "the lifeblood of my only beloved son Anthony was spilled alongside 11 others".

She paid tribute to her son as "a loving young man with a big heart".

She said he was a boy "born to be tolerant" and that he made friends across race, colour and creed - "Friends who he believed in and who, in turn, believed in him to the extent that they would leave no stone unturned in their search for him."

Mrs Fatayi-Williams added her support to the growing clamour for either an independent or public inquiry into the July 7 attack.

"We need to ask ourselves, almost a year on from 7/7, whether we are safer now than then, we need to know what led to 7/7, we need to know the real reasons behind 7/7 and other such atrocities that seem to occur on an almost daily basis the world over.

"We need to know how safe the public transport system in London is and what measures have been taken, if any, to ensure such.

"All of this cannot be done in secrecy without the benefit of hindsight or acceptance of blame where there is fault."

Mrs Fatayi-Williams said that among the questions she wanted answers to, was over the amount of resources dedicated to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles that day which she said left London "vulnerable".

She was also critical of the compensation system for victims' families, which she said relegated "the young dead to the bottom of the ladder".

She said she and her husband would not be accepting the £11,000 on offer as compensation for her son's death.

"No amount of money can replace the life of a loved one," she said.