He’s the lowest of the low
Beggar hailed for helping at Manchester blast admits he stole from bleeding victims
A HOMELESS man hailed a hero for helping to comfort people injured in the Manchester Arena bombing yesterday admitted stealing from victims as they lay bleeding.
Well-wishers raised £50,000 for beggar Chris Parker after he gave television interviews about being caught up in the aftermath of the atrocity, and he was reunited with his mother who had no idea he was sleeping rough.
But he is now facing a lengthy jail sentence for stealing a mobile phone and a purse from victims in what his own barrister described as ‘appalling behaviour’.
Parker, 33, was also branded ‘the lowest of the low’ by the family of one of the 22 people killed when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his home-made device outside an Ariana Grande concert on May 22 last year.
Harrowing CCTV footage played to a court showed Parker wandering around dead and dying concert-goers and their parents, periodically stooping down and apparently rifling through their possessions.
Prosecutors said that while it was clear he had provided ‘some limited assistance’ to survivors, the images showed him examining coats and mobile phones dropped in the panic.
In the most disturbing clip, Parker – wearing a woolly hat and carrying a bulky backpack – was seen crouching next to Pauline Healey as her granddaughter Sorrell Leczkowski, 14, lay dying nearby. As police and paramedics tended to other victims, the CCTV showed him lifting what appeared to be Mrs Healey’s handbag and examining it.
Parker even took a photograph on his mobile phone of Mrs Healey lying apparently unconscious and later tried to sell it to a media organisation, prosecutors said.
Mrs Healey, 64, had 15 hours of surgery to remove shrapnel from her body and suffered multiple compound fractures to her arms and legs, while Sorrell’s mother, Samantha Leczkowski, was also seriously injured. The trio, from Leeds, had gone to meet friends and had not themselves attended the concert.
Yesterday Parker admitted taking Mrs Healey’s purse and fraudulently using her debit card at a local branch of McDonald’s a few days later. He also admitted stealing an iPhone 6 belonging to a teenage girl injured in the attack.
He denied counts of attempted theft for allegedly stealing from an abandoned bag and coat as well as three counts of fraud for using Mrs Healey’s bank cards on other occasions. Parker had been due to stand trial on Tuesday but vanished from the hostel where he was staying before Christmas, cutting off his electronic tag.
A warrant was issued for his arrest and he was found hiding in the loft of a house in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Parker was brought to Manchester Crown Court yesterday where he admitted two counts of theft and one of fraud.
Prosecutor Louise Brandon said his pleas were acceptable to the Crown, with the other alleged offences likely to be left to lie on file. The court heard that Parker had a string of convictions dating back to when he was 15, including the theft of a purse from a woman as well as burglary, battery and criminal damage.
John Broadley, defending, said: ‘He’s tendered these pleas and all he can do in the circumstances is first of all plead guilty and apologise for his appalling behaviour that evening.’ Judge David Hernandez remanded Parker in custody for sentence on January 30, adding that a prison term is ‘most likely’.
After the attack, Parker – who had been begging from concertgoers – recalled that as people fled the bomb blast ‘instead of running away my gut instinct was to run back and try to help’.
‘I saw a little girl… she had no legs,’ he said. ‘I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said, “Where is your mum and daddy?” She said, “My dad is at work, my mum is up there”.’
In the hours after the attack, he told interviewers that he had also tended to a woman in her sixties who had serious leg and head inju- ries. ‘She passed away in my arms,’ he said. ‘I haven’t stopped crying.’ Parker also said: ‘I’m supposed to be a hero, but I’m not a hero. I’m just a normal guy.’
Well- wishers responded by launching an online fundraising campaign on the web site GoFundMe ‘to help one of our most vulnerable in society who showed great selflessness and courage’.
Donations from around the world topped £52,539, although Parker remained on the streets weeks later – at the time his mother Jessica explained: ‘That’s where his friends are.’
Charlotte Hodgson, whose daughter Olivia Campbell, 15, from Bury, was one of Abedi’s victims, branded Parker ‘disgusting’.
She added: ‘People raised money for him to try and get him off the streets. He should be ashamed for what he has done.’
Paul Hodgson, Olivia’s stepfather, described Parker as ‘the lowest of the low’.
Last night it emerged that the money, which has remained under GoFundMe’s control, will not now be given to Parker.
Michael Johns, who started the fundraising appeal, said all the money will be refunded, adding that GoFundMe’s policy prevents him from giving the funds to any other charity or cause.
‘Appalling behaviour’