Police knew shortcomings before Manchester attack

The inquiry into the 2017 Manchester Arena attack has heard that police were told of shortcomings in a terror response plan months before the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert.

In November 2016, six months before Salman Abedi detonated his device at the arena, the police inspectorate warned that ‘an over-reliance’ on the officer in charge of the response could see them overwhelmed. Policing experts believe that is what happened after the May 2017 attack.

The public inquiry into the attack, which killed 22 people, heard from a former inspector that Greater Manchester Police was urged to ‘raise its game’ at the time.

Andrew Buchan, who worked as an inspector with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, said it was identified in 2016 that Greater Manchester Police's plan was ‘very tactically focused’, but it did not go into detail about working with other agencies and had placed ‘an over-reliance’ on the ‘force duty inspector to lead their response to a terrorist attack’.

It has been revealed during the inquiry that only one paramedic was in the City Room foyer, where Abedi detonated his device, for the first 40 minutes after the blast and the first fire engine arrived more than two hours after the explosion.

The inspectorate's report said the force had acknowledged that the pressures the officer would be placed under would ‘bring its own challenges’, but the matter was left unresolved. It added that ‘such apparent vagueness may cause confusion or doubt in a live scenario’ and there was a need ‘to provide the FDO with more immediate support or resources to assist with all the functions expected of that role’.