MI5 faces rebuke over Arena bomb failings

Report on how Manchester attack could have been prevented will criticise raft of missed opportunities

MI5 will come in for scathing criticism this week, The Sunday Telegraph understands, with the publication of a report that will accuse the agency of missing a catalogue of opportunities to prevent the Manchester Arena terror atrocity.

The Security Service is braced for a raft of damning findings, when Sir John Saunders publishes the final section of his report following the conclusion of the long-running public inquiry.

The Telegraph understands the report will be highly critical of MI5’s failure to respond to a series of red-flag warnings ahead of the suicide bombing in May 2017, in which 22 people died.

More than 1,000 people were injured, too, when Salman Abedi detonated a homemade bomb packed with shrapnel inside the foyer of the Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariane Grande concert.

The public inquiry has already heard damning evidence of failings by the police, fire brigade and ambulance service in the immediate aftermath. But the final volume of the report, which will be published on Thursday, will focus on how Abedi planned and prepared the attack and whether anything could have been done to prevent it.

Sir John, the inquiry chairman, is expected to be scathing of the fact that MI5 had enough intelligence to regard Abedi as a threat to national security but failed to sufficiently act on it.

In one of the most glaring misses, Abedi was not questioned on his return to Britain from Libya on May 18, 2017, just four days before the bombing.

Much of the evidence from MI5 during the public inquiry was given behind closed doors to protect national security.

But details shared with the families of the victims reveal numerous missed opportunities by MI5 and counter terror police that could have stopped Abedi before he acted.

The 22-year-old had been flagged up to MI5 on three separate occasions due to concern he was showing signs of radicalisation and was also mixing with terror suspects.

MI5 was first alerted to concerns over his potential for radicalisation in 2014, but at no point was he ever referred to Prevent, the Government’s counterextremism programme.

In March 2014, following the receipt of intelligence, Abedi was declared a “subject of interest” meaning he was formally placed under investigation by MI5. But four months later the file on him was closed after it was determined he did not pose a significant threat.

The case file was reopened in October that same year but this time was closed after a single day.

The Telegraph understands Thursday’s report will be particularly critical of deficiencies in MI5’s system for monitoring subjects of interest such as Abedi, who are not under active investigation.

While Abedi’s case had been flagged for review, this had not taken place by the time he launched his attack.

In the months leading up to the bombing, MI5 received intelligence relating to Abedi on two separate occasions. But the information was discounted at the time as “non-terrorist criminality”.

The Security Service was also aware that Abedi was in regular contact with a convicted terrorist in early 2017 – when he was building the bomb .

Sir John is expected to be scathing about MI5’s failure to join the dots and connect numerous small pieces of intelligence regarding Abedi.

MI5 has previously faced criticism over failings connected to July 7 bombings, the Westminster Bridge London Bridge and Fishmongers’ Hall attacks.

During the public inquiry lawyers for MI5 said decisions taken by the agency around Abedi had to be seen in the context of an “unprecedented” scale of terrorist threat in 2017.

That year there were five terror attacks in Britain but numerous plots were successfully interrupted and prevented.

Richard Scorer, a lawyer at Slater and Gordon who represents 12 of the victims’ families, said: “We hope Sir John analyses what happened, and all the various failings … and makes suitably wide-ranging recommendations.”