‘Manchester bomber showed no radical tendencies’ – teacher

SALMAN Abedi was an “averagely lazy, dislikeable boy” who refused to do his coursework on time, according to one of his former teachers.

But there was nothing about the teenage Abedi that led Mark Roberts to think that he would one day carry out a devastating bomb attack at a pop concert.

Mr Roberts, who taught the Manchester bomber GCSE media studies at Burnage Academy for Boys, said the 22-year-old who committed Monday’s atrocity did not show any radical tendencies.

In an article for the Times Educational Supplement (TES), Mr Roberts said: “’What was he like?’ is the question people have asked me again and again in the last couple of days. I have no response that can square with the actuality of a 22-year-old-man walking into a pop concert wearing a bomb. There is nothing in my recollection that can offer the insight they seek. No savage violence. No radical tendencies.

“No signs of a young man that wanted to take life through the most callous and senseless of acts.

“Instead, all I can give are banal anecdotes about a dislikeable boy who displayed average laziness, mediocre rudeness and refused to complete his coursework on time.”

Mr Roberts, who left Burnage Academy in 2014, and now works in the south west of England, paid tribute to the school, describing it as “Manchester in microcosm” with pupils that “like the people of the city are diverse, energetic, funny, inquisitive and confident”.

And he warned against judging schools that once taught individuals that go on to commit terrible acts.

“When confronted with the information that deluded, ignorant, hatefuelled murderers have attended certain schools, it is tempting to rush to judgement,” he said. “What must have happened in that school? Why weren’t they stopped earlier?”

Schools are used to dealing regularly with unacceptable views, such as pupils using anti-Semitic language or looking at radical websites, Mr Roberts said.

“As long as there is no complacency around early signs of violent extremism, the uncomfortable truth is that there is very little that schools, and individual teachers, could have done differently in these situations.

“Schools are often seen, paradoxically, as the source of, and solution to, all of society’s ills. Yes, schools play a vital role in providing moral guidance – the Burnage motto “be the best that you can be” runs through the core of the school like the writing in a stick of Blackpool rock – but they can’t be held accountable when several years later bad apples turn rotten.”