Figen Murray awarded OBE

Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett, who was killed in the Manchester Arena attack, has been awarded an OBE by Prince William at Buckingham Palace.

The campaigner was honoured in the Queen's New Year Honours list in December 2021. Since the attack, Ms Murray has campaigned for better security in public places, gained a Master's Degree in counter terrorism and spoken to 20,000 children about radicalisation.

Speaking of the motivation behind her campaigning, she said that after the attack: "I could have gone under but that wouldn't have been the right answer. I could have been angry; I chose to forgive. And I think it's really important to stay positive because I have other children to care for and look after and consider." She also added that "as somebody who has been directly affected through terrorism, I was in a position through my personal resilience to actually break the cycle of hate by forgiving" and it was "really important to me to do that". She has publicly forgiven the attacker, Salman Abedi.

Ms Murray is working with the government on the Protect Duty Bill, which has been referred to as Martyn's Law, in honour of her son. The legislation was announced in the Queen's Speech in May. She said there is "still a lot of work to be done", but that although getting the law passed was taking a long time, it was more important that "they take their time and work out all the details of the legislation and get it right than rush it through and then (say), 'this it's not working, it's not workable'".

Martyn's Law would mean that venues would have a legal duty to provide specific plans for a terror attack and require staff at venues to take counter-terrorism training.