Arena bombing response slowed ‘by massive breakdown in communication’

A “MASSIVE” breakdown in communications meant the fire and rescue service did not arrive at the Manchester Arena bombing until more than two hours after the blast, the inquiry into the attack has heard.

Senior firefighter Andy Berry agreed the length of time it took for he and his colleagues to attend the incident which killed 22 people and injured hundreds on the evening of May 22, 2017, was “unacceptable”.

The public inquiry was told officers from British Transport Police, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and a paramedic from North West Ambulance Service had entered the City Room foyer – where Salman Abedi detonated his shrapnel-laden device at 10.31pm – just over 20 minutes after the attack.

Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, said the first firefighters from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service went into Victoria railway station, adjoining the Arena complex, at 12.49am.

He outlined that was two hours and 15 minutes after the first notification to North West Fire Control of an explosion, and two hours and nine minutes after Mr Berry was first alerted.

It was one hour and 58 minutes after each of the other emergency services involved actually had someone within the City Room and one hour and 10 minutes after the last living casualty had been removed from the foyer, he said.

All these timings were compared to an average deployment time – getting to the scene – of six minutes.

Station manager Mr Berry was the duty Nilo (national inter-agency liaison officer) on the night of the attack with responsibilities to provide internal tactical advice to incident commanders and external advice to other agencies about resources and capability.

The inquiry has heard casualties in the City Room were evacuated on makeshift stretchers by police officers and members of the public, as specialist fire crews with enhanced first aid equipment, trauma dressings, tourniquets and rescue stretchers were never sent.

Mr Berry said: “I would say there was a massive breakdown in communications in the initial stages. The principles weren’t implemented correctly, which led to us not receiving the information I required to deploy our resources. Between the three main services there was a lack of communication.”

The inquiry heard Mr Berry made seven failed attempts to contact GMP’S Force Duty Officer Dale Sexton, the initial commander of the incident, within minutes of being told of the explosion.