'He’s the lowest of the low’
Homeless man hailed for helping Manchester bomb victims admits he stole from casualties
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 held Parker in custody to await sentencing on January 30, adding that a prison term is ‘likely’.
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’.
‘Appalling behaviour’