‘Unacceptable and unjustifiable failures’ at Manchester Arena

Lawyers representing the families of those who lost their lives at the Manchester Arena in May 2017 have said that ‘unacceptable and unjustifiable’ security failings allowed the bombing to happen.

The public inquiry into the terrorist attack has heard that relatives of the 22 murdered victims want the government to enforce minimum standards of protection at entertainment venues to ensure a similar atrocity cannot be repeated. This follows evidence of numerous ‘missed opportunities’ to prevent Salman Abedi detonating his bomb, including inadequate police patrols, poor staff training and insufficient terror attack planning.

Addressing the inquiry on 25 January, Duncan Atkinson QC said security at the arena was under-resourced, badly coordinated and insufficiently focused on terrorism – despite the UK threat level standing at severe and the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan and Stade de France.

He said that the attack was, at least in part, ‘the result of a failure to anticipate and address a risk that should have been obvious, rather than a failure that only hindsight reveals’.