Missed chances to stop the Manchester Arena bomber
THE Manchester Arena terrorist could have been stopped had crucial security opportunities not been missed, a hearing was told yesterday.
ISIS- inspired Salman Abedi, 22, detonated his suicide bomb in the foyer just as an Ariana Grande concert finished in May 2017.
Yesterday, the attack’s long- awaited public inquiry opened with a minute’s silence and the names of the 22 victims who died read out.
Loved ones and court officials all stood in silent remembrance as the names were recited at the opening of the hearing.
Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, revealed how suspicious onlookers tried to draw security guards’ attention to Abedi before the blast.
One father waiting in the foyer even approached the terrorist, who was wearing a huge shrapnel- packed rucksack, and quizzed him
The man, known only as Witness A, said Abedi looked “out of place”.
But when he alerted security “fobbed off”.
Mr Greaney told the inquiry at Manchester magistrates’ court: “He asked the man, ‘ What have you got in your rucksack?’ but got no reply.
“He then told Abedi, ‘ It doesn’t look very good you know, you with a bag in a place like this. What are you doing?’”
The man is said to have replied: “I’m waiting for somebody, mate. Have you got the time? What time is it?”
The witness raised his concerns – 17 minutes he was
before the bomb detonated worker Mohammed Agha.
Mr Agha was an employee of Showsec, the firm which provided security to the Arena on behalf of the venue’s owners, SMG.
The inquiry was told Mr Agha then spoke to security colleague Kyle Lawler. By now it was eight minutes before the explosion. But it was said that neither police nor security chiefs were informed, although Mr Lawler allegedly unsuccessfully tried to radio his security control.
Mr Lawler later said he spotted the suspicious man start walking towards the arena entrance. He said: “I just froze. I knew it was too late.” The first day of the inquiry also
– to security
Leading probe... Sir John Saunders
heard a British Transport ansport
Police officer was s told by another passer- by an hour before how Abedi appeared to be praying.
Opening what will be six months of evidence, Mr Greaney said experts had been tasked to judge the arena’s security that fateful night.
He said it was “of considerable importance” that “there were missed opportunities to identify Salman Abedi as a threat and take mitigating action”.
The experts concluded: “If the presence of a potential suicide bomber had been reported, actions would’ve been taken that could have reduced the impact of the attack.
“There was sufficient time between Abedi first being spotted and also reported to staff and his attack to effectively react.”
Mr Greaney said: “The evidence about these potential missed opportunities will the blast need to be considered possible care.”
Sir John Saunders, a retired High Court ju judge, is leading the probe examining ev events before, during and after the at attack.
Formally opening the inquiry, Sir John sai said: “This is an exercise in establishing the t truth.
“If I conclude things went wrong then I shall s say so, but we are not looking for scapegoat goats. We are searching for the truth.
“The explosion killed 22 people, includin ing children. The youngest was eight years ol old.”
Sir John said some evidence must be h heard in secret to prevent further similar te terrorist attacks.
A Abedi was known to the security service vices, and a senior MI5 officer, known only as Wi Witness J, is expected to give evidence to the in inquiry later this year.
Abe Abedi’s brother Hashem Abedi, now 23, was last month jailed for life with a minimum 55 years for assisting in what Mr Greaney branded their “murderous plan”.
In April 2017, the brothers bought hydrogen peroxide using an email account with a phrase meaning, “We come to slaughter” in Arabic, the inquiry heard.
They bought a Nissan Micra on April 13 to store their chemicals and bags of nails and screws which they used to maximise their slaughter.
The hearing was also told the highly unstable explosive they created, acetone peroxide, is known as “mother of Satan”.
Mr Greaney added: “Salman and Hashem Abedi set out to construct a device intended to cause death, destruction and misery on a massive scale.”
The inquiry continues. with the greatest
THE first time I saw Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr snogging in the surf in that sexy scene in the Oscar- winning film From Here To Eternity, I was sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon watching TV with my parents.
My dad – who’d obviously seen it before and knew what was coming – did what he always did when he knew he was about to be embarrassed and said: “Carole, go make a cup of tea…” That was his way of saying: “I can’t sit here and watch this while you’re watching it.”
It was the only time in my young life I disobeyed my dad and told him to make his own tea because I was mesmerised by just how big and chunky and handsome Burt Lancaster was and how glorious he looked in trunks. And there was no way I was going to be boiling a kettle in the kitchen while he was boiling up over Deborah on that beach.
In those days you never actually saw them have sex. That scene was made all the more titillating because I’d only ever seen Deborah Kerr in syrupy movies where she played the baby- faced blonde innocent. And even though I was just 10, I looked at that snog in the waves and I could see there was absolutely nothing innocent about it.
I remember reading somewhere that in the 50s, stars had to kiss with their mouths closed. Well Burt’s very definitely was not…
IN 1973 Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland caused a storm of controversy with an explicit sex scene in Don’t Look Now. When it later shown on TV that scene was gone and yes, the film did seem to lack something, but it was not the graphic sex.
Rather, the lost scene had been used to demonstrate the loving closeness of the man and wife, but I have seen the same effect achieved equally well on screen with a wife vigorously towelling dry her husband’s hair.
Physical closeness is not even required.
Who can forget the smouldering tension in South Pacific when Mitzi Gaynor is washing that man right out of her hair just as he is approaching?
Or the gradual build- up of attraction between innocent Joan Fontaine and brooding Laurence Olivier in Rebecca, though they get no closer than sitting side by side in a car? Or the insistently growing forbidden love in The Prisoner Of Zenda?
The simple truth is that there is no more need to portray sexual attraction through its anatomical workings than there is to describe the digestive system when two characters in a film eat together.
GETTING CLOSE FOR COMFORT: Innocent Fontaine snuggles up to brooding Olivier in Rebecca