Struggling exhaustion’

STRETCHED police officers struggling to cope in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena terror attack are reaching the point of exhaustion, a senior officer has warned.

Chief Inspector Ian Hanson blamed a combination of savage cuts – which has seen police numbers slashed – and the huge national drive to fight terrorism which means there are around 500 live investigations at any one time and an MI5 watchlist of 3,000 people of concern.

A huge investigation is continuing into how mass murderer Salman Abedi carried out the Arena atrocity, killing 22 and injuring many more.

The bombing attack came at a time when a series of cuts had brought GMP close to withdrawing entirely from community policing, which had become its bedrock over the previous decade.

CI Hanson, chairman of the Greater Manchester branch of the Police Federation, spoke out after Chief Constable Ian Hopkins and Mayor Andy Burnham have already indicated the 6,000-plus police officers in GMP isn’t enough.

He said: “Let us be really clear in that a determined attack such as the one we saw at the Manchester Arena is incredibly difficult to prevent.

“Such are the scale of watch lists that security services cannot place literally thousands of people on round-theclock surveillance.

“However, the single most effective weapon against the terrorist is the police officer and PCSO on the ground.

“It is they who develop the trust and confidence of our communities and to whom information is quietly and confidentially passed relating to individuals who are causing concern due to their behaviour.

“This simple and long-established formula, which has its origins in everything that is the bedrock of British