Manchester Arena attack: Security services might have prevented Manchester Arena bombing, inquiry finds
The security services were guilty of “a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented” the Manchester Arena bombing, according to the chairman of the inquiry into the atrocity.
A report published by former high court judge Sir John Saunders, the third and final from his inquiry, looked at whether MI5 and counter-terror police could have prevented bomber Salman Abedi from carrying out the attack.
Inquiry latest: Bomber’s family held ‘significant responsibility’ for his radicalisation
The inquiry had heard Manchester-born Abedi had been on the radar of the security services for seven years before the bombing.
Twenty-two people died and hundreds were injured in Abedi’s suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017.
Victims of the Manchester Arena terror attack
The report also covered the radicalisation of Abedi and the planning and preparation for the attack.
But the focus for many of the families of the victims has been the failings of the security services to prevent the attack.
In his report, Sir John said: “There was a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack.
“It is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probabilities or to any other evidential standard as to whether the attack would have been prevented.
“However, there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to actions preventing the attack.”
He said the reason for the missed opportunity included a failure by a Security Service officer to act swiftly enough.
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How MI5 got Manchester Arena attack wrong
‘Devastating conclusion’
The inquiry, he said, also identified problems with the sharing of information between the Security Service and counter-terrorism police.
“It remains quite impossible to say whether any different or additional action taken by the authorities could have prevented the attack. It might have done; it might not have done.”
Families of the victims described the report as a “devastating conclusion”.
In a statement they said: “Today’s report has been deeply painful to read, but also eye-opening. On the issue of the preventability of this attack, inevitably the report provides less information than we would have wanted. But it is now very clear that there was a failure to properly assess key intelligence about Salman Abedi; a failure to put it into proper context; and – most catastrophic of all – a delay in acting on it.
“As a result of these failures, at the very least, a real possibility of preventing this attack was lost. This is a devastating conclusion for us. The failures exposed in this report are unacceptable.”
They added: “It is clear that Salman Abedi should have been referred to Prevent (counter-terror programme). It is clear that the education system needs to be more vigilant in picking up signs of radicalisation. It is clear that Didsbury mosque turned a blind eye to extremism in its midst. Sir John’s report today contains many lessons; we must heed every one of them and make the necessary changes urgently.
“On 22 May 2017, thousands of people left their homes to attend a concert at Manchester Arena. 22 of those would never return home. Those killed and injured in this murderous attack had every right to feel safe and protected, but as this inquiry has demonstrated, they were failed at every level – before, during and after this horrific attack.”
Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi
‘Intelligence was not shared’
A number of MI5 and police counter-terrorism detective witnesses gave evidence behind closed doors during the 17-month inquiry. The sessions were held in secret in an effort not to compromise national security.
A summary of some of their evidence was later made public but the so-called “gist” did not reveal any details about the intelligence received by MI5 in the months before the attack.
But Sir John’s report identified the “principal missed opportunity” as two pieces of intelligence received by the Security Service in the months prior to the attack, “the significance of which was not fully appreciated at the time”.
Both of those pieces of intelligence, which were not disclosed in the report, were assessed to relate to “non-nefarious activity or to non-terrorist criminal activity” on the part of Abedi.
Neither piece of intelligence was shared by the Security Service (MI5) with counter-terror police in the northwest. If further investigative steps had been taken as a result of one of those pieces of intelligence, Sir John said, “this would have increased the overall prospect that the attack would have been prevented”.
The other critical piece of intelligence, Sir John said, “gave rise to the real possibility of obtaining information that might have led to actions which prevented the attack. We cannot know what would have happened, but there is at least the material possibility that opportunities to intervene were missed”.
When Abedi returned to the UK from Libya four days before the attack, he said, that information could have led to his Nissan Micra, which contained the explosive, being followed by police.
When the second piece of intelligence was received, Sir John said, the Security Service officer should have discussed it straight away and written their report on the same day but did not do so.
“The delay in providing the report led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action. I am satisfied that such an investigative action would have been a proportionate and justified step to take. This should have happened,” he said.
Sir John said the security service and police “underestimated the risk” of returnees from Libya because of their focus on those from Syria.
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‘MI5 have blood on their hands’
Abedi’s radicalisation
The inquiry identified other missed opportunities to intercept Abedi.
The Security Service had first received information relating to him in December 2010, he was treated as a “subject of interest” in 2015 and had contact with a convicted terrorist and “known radicaliser” Abdalraouf Abdallah.
Messages between Abedi and Abdalraouf Abdallah were not given to the security service by counter-terror police. They should have been, Sir John said, as this would have added to the picture about Abedi’s “actions and intentions”.
A meeting to consider further investigation of Abedi had been scheduled for 31 May 2017, nine days after the bombing.
In his report, Sir John said the Abedi family – father Ramadan, mother Samia and elder brother Ismail – held “significant responsibility” for the radicalisation of Salman Abedi and his younger brother Hashem. Hashem Abedi is serving a minimum of 55 years for helping to plan the attack.
“Salman Abedi’s radicalisation journey into operational violent Islamist extremism was primarily driven by noxious absences and malign presences,” Sir John said.
“Noxious absences included a prolonged disengagement from mainstream English education and parental absence. Malign presences included the ongoing conflict in Libya and engagement with a radicalising peer group.”
Hashem Abedi is serving life in prison for helping build the bomb
‘Missed opportunities’
Sir John’s first inquiry report, published in June 2012, focussed on security arrangements on the night of the bombing and highlighted a string of “missed opportunities” to intercept Abedi before he detonated his device.
His second report, published in November last year, was highly critical of the emergency service response. He judged that one of the victims, John Atkinson, would have probably survived had it not been for the inadequate response. There was a “remote possibility” that the youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, could have lived.
Read more:
The mistakes made at Manchester Arena as emergency services responded to the terror attack
The missed opportunities by security to stop Salman Abedi on night of Manchester Arena bombing
In his final report, Sir John said, Abedi “left behind no message to explain why he carried out the attack. The evidence I heard does not provide a definitive answer as to why he did what he did”.
He said the national security interest of holding some parts of the inquiry in private “has been particularly difficult for the bereaved families”.
He added: “I am sorry that I have not been able to reveal in my open report everything I have discovered. I know that what I have revealed, while increasing public knowledge, will raise other questions.”
(L-R) Salman Abedi and his brothers Hashem and Ismail
Sir John made a number of recommendations in his final report.
He said that no one should underestimate the “very difficult job” of security services, particularly with the emergence of lone actor terrorists whose activities are more difficult to track.
Dozens of so-called “late-stage attack plots” had been disrupted since the start of 2017, he said.
“Having said all that, if the Security Service or counterterrorism policing make mistakes, then these need to be identified and steps taken to put them right.”
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she is “committed” to working with MI5 and the police to “do everything possible” to prevent a repeat of the “horrifying” attack.
Bishop Ceirion Dewar rejects the Church of England as heretics. Instead, he gathers his flock under a gloomy sky on a beach in Cornwall.
More than 20 people answered the call he made on social media – one wears a T-shirt saying Jesus is King.
Another wears a Union Jack anorak with a T-shirt emblazoned “UTK” – Unite the Kingdom – the movement organised by anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson.
Wearing a white robe over a wetsuit, Dewar strides down the beach and prepares for a mass baptism.
His voice booms out: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I gladly baptise you!”
Critics call Dewar “the far-right bishop” – a label he rejects.
But he does represent a new type of Christianity – more militant, more political – and one that is on the rise.
Several of those here came because they saw Dewar preaching fire and brimstone at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march on 13 September.
And they are ready to follow him into the cold waters of the Celtic Sea. One by one, he blesses them, then plunges them under the waves. Afterwards, they hug. Some are euphoric.
Bishop Ceirion Dewar performs a mass baptism in Bude
Fergus Worrall drove from Bristol with his girlfriend Louise French; both were baptised.
“I saw Ceirion’s speech at the Unite the Kingdom rally, and it was just epic,” Worrall says. “I mean, I just loved it.”
Worrall says he used to be “fairly lefty”. After trying Buddhism and New Age practices, he came to Christianity. But Dewar’s appeal is not just religious – online he decries immigration and the influence of Islam, a message that “chimed”.
“We are a Christian culture, a Christian nation. And I do feel like we have lost a lot of that.”
A month earlier, Dewar had addressed the 150,000-strong crowd at the Unite the Kingdom march in London, bishop’s crook in hand, his voice thundering out over Westminster: “God, you have not abandoned Britain!”
When he looked out, he saw not just British and English flags, but wooden crosses and depictions of Jesus.
It was not his first appearance with Robinson. The year before, he spoke at another rally in Whitehall and said: “This nation of ours is under attack! We are at war! We are at war not just with the Muslim, not just with wokeness.”
People stand with crucifixes at the Unite the Kingdom rally, in central London on 13 September
This is something new and growing – a movement that has long marched against immigration, against Islam, is now marching behind the cross.
I ask Dewar what for him, as a Christian, is the appeal of Robinson.
“It’s not the appeal of Tommy Robinson, per se,” he says. “It was the opportunity that he afforded to me to stand in front of that many people and to both pray for the people and this nation.”
Sky’s Data and Forensics correspondent Tom Cheshire interviews Bishop Ceirion Dewar on a beach in Cornwall
Dewar was marching front and centre with Robinson. He may be borrowing an audience from Robinson, but he’s also effectively endorsing him, I suggest – and doing so in a bishop’s garb.
“I don’t think that at all. I’m very clear on what I endorse, and my political views are public and well-founded.
“My stand with Tommy is not necessarily political. It’s a man that has surrendered his life to Christ, and he’s on that journey of faith and trying as a good shepherd to help lead him in that and to shape that faith in a way that is beneficial to him.”
I ask him whether he truly thinks we are “at war” with the Muslim.
Bishop Ceirion Dewar
“Unfortunately, what I was trying to convey, having listened to an entire day’s worth of speeches, didn’t come across quite the way I’d hoped to have expressed it,” Dewar says.
“The problem for me is I understand we’re a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-faith Britain, but when you have so many elements that refuse to get into the great melding pot of multiculturalism, but remain outside and try and force that culture, force that religious system, force that legal system into an existing culture, then there’s always going to be problems.
“I would love to see more Christianity at the heart of our politics. I would like to see Christian principles once again driving our legal system.”
Many on the hard and far right agree with him – and increasingly link an anti-Islam agenda with a Christian identity. That also adds grandeur to grassroots street politics, elevating a culture war into a clash of civilisations.
UKIP, which has become more explicitly nationalist since the departure of Nigel Farage as party leader, says in its manifesto that it will “declare war on radical Islam and place Christianity back into the heart of government”.
Online, people call for a “holy war”. Katie Hopkins, the far-right commentator who also marched shoulder to shoulder with Robinson, said in a recent interview: “Certainly the time of the crusades will need to come again… We are overrun.”
One group organising online, with more than 50,000 followers, uses Christian imagery as part of its pledge to “hunt down Muslims”.
Dr Maria Power, author of The Church, the Far Right, and the Claim to Christianity, describes this as “Christian nationalism” and says it has a precedent in the UK, especially in Northern Ireland, where Britishness and Christianity were often equated.
“But really, I’ve seen it increase since we’ve seen the power of Christian nationalism in the states develop. You start to see inklings of it, probably about four or five years ago. Particular pastors talking this way, podcasts emerging, and content emerging on places like YouTube. And it’s very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of the algorithm, isn’t it?”
Ceirion Dewar rejects the term Christian nationalism, which he sees as specific to the United States, a country that has a different tradition of public, political Christianity. And it’s true that he and others have been advocating and preaching a more muscular Christianity since at least 2016 and the Brexit referendum.
One of his friends is Rikki Doolan, who belongs to the Spirit Embassy, a church in London with British-Zimbabwean origins. (A 2023 investigation by Al Jazeera accused Doolan and others in the church of being involved in money laundering, an accusation Doolan describes as “fake news and a false narrative”.)
It was Doolan who “converted” Tommy Robinson to Christianity three weeks before the latter left prison earlier this year. Doolan says it is “a new journey” for Robinson.
Tommy Robinson stands at the start of the Unite The Kingdom protest in central London
Doolan was also on stage at UTK. I ask him about some of the statements made there, including by a Belgian politician, that “Islam does not belong in Europe and Islam does not belong in the UK”. He says he disagrees with that “because it’s not realistic”. But “if we can’t fix the problem, then that makes more sense. But I would like to try and fix it first”.
Doolan and Dewar stand outside the established Church. But the majority of Christians in the UK still belong to the Church of England.
Dr Sam Wells is the vicar of St Martin’s-in-the-Field, a Church of England church on the corner of Trafalgar Square in London. He was holding an annual service commemorating victims of suicide when Robinson’s march came right up to the square, resulting in skirmishes with the police. Wells says his congregation was “hurt” by the Christian imagery on display.
“The gestures of the cross, the Christian symbols, are about love and understanding and peace and gentleness and they’re being thrust in people’s faces as weapons,” he says. “I think that’s very painful.”
Wells was one of the senior clergy leaders who signed an open letter denouncing Robinson’s march as a “corruption” of the Christian faith, saying the cross was being “co-opted” by the far right. Dewar in turn wrote his own letter denouncing the Anglican hierarchy for seeking “polite applause in editorial offices and political chambers”, calling on them to “repent”.
Dr Wells says Dewar’s letter is “very well expressed but I think it’s nonsense”.
“Christian values, what does that actually mean? I think it means love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. An institution or a church or a preacher has a right to be called Christian if they look like Jesus. Those marches didn’t look like Jesus to me. They looked like the kind of people who were attacking Jesus in Holy Week.
“I think they’re reading a different Bible from the one I’m reading.”
If the talk is of winning, well there are very different battlegrounds.
The cloisters versus a Cornish beach.
Dewar has several mass baptisms planned across the country; so does Doolan.
This is not just about the extreme right using Christianity for their own ends; it’s just as much some Christians using the far right to reach new audiences.
A new Christian politics, in all sorts of ways and all sorts of places, is on the march.
People hold crucifixes at the Unite The Kingdom rally in central London
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The worst offending areas for uninsured driving in the UK have been revealed – as a hit-and-run victim described how he was “left for dead” with catastrophic injuries.
Every 20 minutes, someone in the UK is hit by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) said, based on claims from over 26,000 victims each year.
Every day, at least one person is so seriously injured by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver that they need life-long care and every week, at least one person is killed by an uninsured driver, according to the bureau.
Thurrock in Essex is the worst offending area for uninsured driving, according to claim data from the MIB, a non-profit organisation created to protect people from the impact of uninsured and hit-and-run drivers.
Four different postal areas in Birmingham are among the 15 hotspots highlighted by the MIB, with areas in Peterborough, Manchester, Belfast and Havering also named due to housing a large number of defendants per 1,000 residents.
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Map shows worst areas for uninsured driving in UK
The 15 worst postal areas for uninsured driving
• 1. Thurrock (RM19)
• 2. Birmingham (B25)
• 3. Birmingham (B18)
• 4. Peterborough (PE1)
• 5. Sandwell (B66)
• 6. Havering (RM1)
• 7. Birmingham (B21)
• 8. Manchester (M18)
• 9. Birmingham (B35)
• 10. Belfast (BT17)
• 11. Epping Forest (IG7)
• 12. Belfast (BT13)
• 13. Buckinghamshire (HP18)
• 14. Bradford (BD7)
• 15. Luton (LU1)
One of the victims of an uninsured driver is cyclist Cahal O’Reilly, 55, who was five miles from the ferryport in Holyhead, Wales, when he was hit from behind in September 2021.
He was thrown on to the windscreen and 20m through the air until he landed on the side of the road, seriously injured.
The uninsured driver, who police estimate was driving at 70mph, fled the scene.
Mr O’Reilly suffered catastrophic injuries, including a broken neck and back. Pic: MIB
‘Left for dead’
“I was left for dead, bleeding to death on the side of the road,” Mr O’Reilly told Sky News.
“Nobody knows how long I was on the floor for. When I came to my senses, I could taste my own blood and feel the road on my cheek.”
He realised he was “pretty seriously injured” when he could not move his ankles, and lay still until help arrived.
A passing motorist, who initially thought Mr O’Reilly’s lifeless form was debris before realising it was a body, called the emergency services.
Mr O’Reilly was left with serious injuries, including a broken back and neck, shattered pelvis, smashed bone in his leg, and dislocated shoulder and required several surgeries in the days after the crash.
Police said Mr O’Reilly would be dead if he had not worn his helmet. Pic: MIB
The back tire of Mr O’Reilly’s bicycle was completely ripped apart. Pic: MIB
“I suffered a polytrauma, which is multiple horrendous injuries,” Mr O’Reilly said. “The police said if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I would be dead, and officers didn’t think I would make it.
“The hospital consultant told my wife that most people don’t survive the impact, the time until the ambulance arrives, and 22 hours of operations in 48 hours.”
Doctors had to use rods to reconnect Mr O’Reilly’s knee and ankle on his right leg, as the bottom of his foot “was just hanging on by skin and muscle”, and use an arterial skin graft from his left arm to help patch up the damage to his smashed leg.
Mr O’Reilly, who lives in Wandsworth, south London, also had to wear a neck brace for more than five months to stabilise his shattered neck and had to learn how to walk again, with serious setbacks on the way.
Mr O’Reilly had to learn how to walk again after extensive surgery. Pic: MIB
‘Challenging’ recovery
“My pelvis and back fused and healed very quickly, but my leg took the main force of initial impact, with bits of my leg tissue found in the headlight of the car,” Mr O’Reilly said.
Just when he started seeing some progress in the rehab for his leg, about 18 months after the crash, doctors discovered that the metal work supposed to hold the bones together was falling apart, causing a serious infection in his leg.
Mr O’Reilly required another surgery and was told that if the bone did not heal, his leg would have to be amputated.
Mr O’Reilly’s blood and tissue were found in the headlights of the driver’s car. Pic: MIB
Four years on from the horrifying crash, he was told that his bone had finally fused last month.
“If you walk past me in the street, you wouldn’t know now, but the process to get there was very difficult and psychologically quite challenging,” Mr O’Reilly said.
The former British Army major hopes he will be able to return to work as a business consultant next year.
Read more:
Victim criticises ‘appalling’ sentence for uninsured driver
Nurse describes ‘horrific’ fatal crash
He is now campaigning with the MIB to stop uninsured drivers from hitting the roads, as he wants “nobody to go through what I had to go through”.
“We have to do something in this country,” he said. “People are morally making a choice where they don’t care about their fellow citizens and fail to insure their car and make sure it is properly taxed. Something like that is a social responsibility.”
Mr O’Reilly is campaigning with the MIB to stop uninsured motorists. Pic: MIB
£1bn cost of uninsured drivers
Uninsured driving costs the government £1bn a year, including compensation for victims, emergency services, medical costs and loss of productivity.
An uninsured vehicle is seized every four minutes across the UK, with almost 120,000 seized so far this year, the MIB said.
The bureau has launched a week-long road safety initiative in collaboration with police forces across the UK, including targeted enforcement in problem areas and public education to urge people to check their insurance status.
“Our aim is to end uninsured driving, which means working closely with the police across the UK to remove dangerous vehicles from our roads,” Martin Saunders, head of enforcement at MIB, said.
“At the same time, we are ramping up our support for motorists who want to drive legally, providing them with the knowledge they need to have the right cover in place.”
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