Manchester Arena bombing victim would have survived but for ‘inadequate’ emergency response, inquiry finds
A victim of the Manchester Arena bombing would likely have survived had it not been for the inadequate emergency response, an inquiry has found.
John Atkinson’s injuries were “survivable” but he did not receive the “treatment and care he should have”, said Sir John Saunders, chairman of the Manchester Arena Inquiry.
Mr Atkinson, a 28-year-old healthcare worker, was one of 22 innocent people who lost their lives following the suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.
A report examining the emergency response to the attack found that “significant aspects… went wrong” and “the performance of the emergency services was far below the standard” it should have been.
“Some of what went wrong had serious and, in the case of John Atkinson, fatal consequences for those directly affected by the explosion,” Sir John said.
The inquiry has heard that firefighters did not arrive at Manchester Arena until two hours after the bombing; only one paramedic entered the blast scene in the first 40 minutes, and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) did not declare a major incident for more than two hours.
The father of the youngest victim – eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos – described the emergency response as “shameful” and “inadequate”, with some experts telling the inquiry she could have survived had the response been different.
Saffie-Rose Roussos was the youngest victim of the attack
However Sir John concluded that “there was only a remote possibility that she could have survived with different treatment and care”.
“On the evidence that I have accepted, what happened to Saffie-Rose Roussos represents a terrible burden of injury,” he said.
“It is highly likely that her death was inevitable even if the most comprehensive and advanced medical treatment had been initiated immediately after injury.”
Emergency response ‘prevented victim’s survival’
In the second of three reports into the Manchester Arena bombing, Sir John found that 20 of the 22 people who died in the attack suffered injuries that were “unsurvivable”.
However in the case of Mr Atkinson, the retired High Court judge said that had the victim “received the treatment and care he should have, it is likely that he would have survived”.
“It is likely that inadequacies in the emergency response prevented his survival,” Sir John added.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Arena bombing victims ‘let down’
Mr Atkinson, a fitness fanatic whose family described him as their “heart and soul”, had received tickets to the Ariana Grande concert as a Christmas present and went with a friend.
He was standing just six metres away from Salman Abedi when the bomber detonated his device at about 10.30pm on 22 May 2017, causing severe injuries to Mr Atkinson’s legs.
Read more:
How emergency crews responded to arena bombing
Security failings that led to Manchester attack
The inquiry heard Mr Atkinson, from Bury, Greater Manchester, lost a significant amount of blood as he laid in agony on the foyer floor for 47 minutes before he was carried downstairs by police on a makeshift stretcher to a casualty clearing area at Victoria station.
More than 20 minutes passed – as ambulances queued outside – before he went into cardiac arrest at 11.47pm and was finally rushed to Manchester Royal Infirmary at midnight, where he was pronounced dead about 25 minutes later.
A member of the public, Ronald Blake, held an improvised tourniquet on Mr Atkinson’s right leg for up to an hour before paramedics reached him.
Only three paramedics entered the area known as the City Room, where the bomb went off, on the night – two of them just a few minutes before Mr Atkinson was evacuated.
He was not triaged, assessed or assisted by North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) personnel during his time in the foyer.
In his report, Sir John said he accepted the conclusion of experts that Mr Atkinson “would have survived if given prompt and expert medical treatment”.
He concluded that medical tourniquets should have been applied to Mr Atkinson’s legs and dressings applied to his wounds earlier.
The inquiry chairman said “responsibility for that failure” rested with the arena’s operator SMG and the management of Emergency Training UK, which was contracted to provide healthcare at the venue.
He added that more paramedics should have been in the City Room earlier and they would likely have “identified the need for urgent treatment and evacuation” of Mr Atkinson.
Police at the scene of the bombing on 22 May 2017
“That did not occur,” Sir John said. “Responsibility for that failure rests with NWAS.
“Such treatment would, I am satisfied, have enabled John Atkinson to arrive at hospital prior to having a cardiac arrest and would probably have saved his life.”
Sir John also said that Mr Atkinson should have been moved from the City Room promptly and if firefighters had been at the scene at the time, the victim would have been “prioritised for evacuation”.
He also pointed out that if more ambulances had been at the scene shortly after 11pm, Mr Atkinson would have received treatment and he would have been taken to hospital sooner.
“Either way, he would have reached hospital before having a cardiac arrest and is likely to have survived,” Sir John said.
“John Atkinson would probably have survived had it not been for inadequacies in the emergency response.”
The victims of the Manchester Arena bombing
‘Mistakes’ made by emergency services
In his report, Sir John said “significant aspects of the emergency response on 22 May 2017 went wrong” and “this should not have happened”.
The inquiry chairman said he had “no doubt that lives were saved by the emergency response”, but added: “Looked at overall, and objectively, the performance of the emergency services was far below the standard it should have been.”
He said GMP “did not lead the response” the way it should have; Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) “failed to turn up at the scene at a time when they could provide the greatest assistance”; and NWAS “failed to send sufficient paramedics” into the City Room and “did not use available stretchers to remove casualties in a safe way”.
The inquiry heard that police officers, arena staff and members of the public were forced to carry injured people using advertising hoardings, crowd barriers and tables due to the lack of stretchers, which Sir John said was “a painful and unsafe way of moving the injured”.
He added that “one of the most emotional and upsetting parts of the inquiry” was hearing of the “despair” of those injured, who could hear ambulance sirens outside but saw few paramedics arrive.
Among the failures identified in the report:
• Inspector Dale Sexton, the force duty officer at GMP’s headquarters, became “overburdened” and made a “significant mistake” in failing to declare a major incident in the early stages of the emergency response. GMP only declared a major incident close to 1am – two and a half hours after the bomb went off
• After inaccurate reports of gunshots, Insp Sexton declared Operation Plato – the emergency response to an attack by a marauding terrorist with a gun – but failed to communicate this to other emergency services
• GMFRS station manager Andrew Berry sent firefighters to Philips Park fire station, three miles away from the scene, meaning some firefighters were driving away from the incident and past ambulances travelling in the opposite direction
• Inspector Benjamin Dawson, from British Transport Police (BTP), declared a major incident around 10 minutes after the attack but did not tell GMP or GMFRS
• There was “substantial confusion” over the location of a rendezvous point for emergency services, with each service choosing their own
• NWAS declared a major incident about 15 minutes after the attack but this was not shared with any other emergency service
Sir John said “there was the failure of anyone in a senior position in GMFRS to take a grip of the situation during the critical period of the response”.
He acknowledged he had “criticised a large number of people” who he considered had “made mistakes on the night”, adding that “some of those criticisms may seem harsh, particularly given the situation that those individuals were faced with”.
“They were trying to do their best,” he added. “I do understand the enormous pressures that they were acting under.
“They had to do many things in a short time and it may not be surprising that things went wrong. I am not unsympathetic to them.
“But I need to identify mistakes where they have been made because otherwise there is no prospect of preventing them in the future.”
Read more:
The missed opportunities to stop Salman Abedi
Manchester Arena lives could have been saved – but warning was ‘fobbed off’
Salman Abedi carried out the suicide bombing
Among a series of recommendations, Sir John said that “in the event that public funding cuts are in the future considered necessary by the government, the Home Office should consider whether some funding arrangement for police services different from that applied in the post-2010 period is necessary”.
Responding to the report, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it was “a devastating reminder of the Manchester Arena attack and the horror of that night”.
“Without doubt, our emergency services show incredible courage when responding to incidents of this magnitude,” she said.
“It’s right that we reflect and work together to learn from this tragedy. I will carefully consider the recommendations made so far to strengthen our response.”
Sir John’s first report on security issues at the arena venue was issued last June and highlighted a string of “missed opportunities” to identify Abedi as a threat before he walked across the City Room foyer and detonated his shrapnel-laden device.
The third and final report will focus on the radicalisation of Abedi and what the intelligence services and counter-terrorism police knew, and if they could have prevented the attack. It will be published at a later date.
A woman accused of stalking Madeleine McCann’s parents shouted: “Why are you doing this to me?” and was led away in tears by officers, during her trial.
Giving evidence against 24-year-old Julia Wandelt, Mrs McCann said her first contact with the Polish woman happened “about three years ago”.
Wandelt insisted that she was Madeleine, who went missing in Portugal in 2007, while stalking the missing girl’s parents by sending emails, calling them and turning up at their address, prosecutors allege.
Follow the latest updates from the trial
Wandelt claims to be missing Madeleine McCann (pictured)
Wandelt is accused of one count of stalking causing serious alarm and distress to Mrs McCann and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year. She denies stalking.
She is on trial with 61-year-old Karen Spragg, from Cardiff, who is accused of the same offence and also denies the offence.
Speaking from behind a blue curtain screening her from the dock at Leicester Crown Court, Mrs McCann spoke about the defendants visiting her home address in Leicestershire on 7 December last year.
A court sketch of Karen Spragg (left) and Julia Wandelt (right), with Kate McCann sitting behind a blue curtain. Pic: PA
Mrs McCann told the court that Wandelt had been “pleading” with her, asking why she wouldn’t agree to do a DNA test.
Spragg, who accompanied Wandelt, was “slightly more aggressive”, asking her whether she didn’t want to find her daughter, Mrs McCann added.
“I told them to leave. I told them I was distressed,” she told the court.
Karen Spragg arrives at Leicester Crown Court. Pic: PA
Asked how the incident had made her feel, Mrs McCann added: “I felt quite distressed to be honest. I think I had been on edge anyway because of the recent communications from her.”
After Mrs McCann had given her first round of evidence, Wandelt was led away from the dock after sobbing loudly and shouting: “Why are you doing this to me?”.
Mrs McCann told the jury that Wandelt had been “incessant” with her messages, which left her with a “little niggle” about doing a DNA test.
Kate and Gerry McCann are pictured in 2012 with a missing poster depicting an age progression computer-generated image of Madeleine. Pic: AP
She said part of her brain was “saying ‘what if'” because of Wandelt’s frequent messages, but added: “Having seen a photo of her, she’s Polish … it doesn’t make sense.”
“I can’t say what Madeleine looks like now, but if I saw a photo of her, I would recognise her,” she said.
But she added that the “persistance” of Wandelt’s behaviour started to “get to” her, making her “almost [want] a DNA test to put it to bed”.
Read more from Sky News:
Rise in online hate targeting footballers
Badenoch has done enough to hold off critics
Asked about the impact on her between June 2022, when Wandelt first made contact, and February this year, when the 24-year-old was arrested, Mrs McCann said: “I feel like it has escalated, the level of stress and anxiety it’s caused me has increased over that time.”
She added that she has felt “more relaxed” since Wandelt’s arrest.
Gerry McCann told the court he answered the phone to Julia Wandelt on one of the many occasions that she tried to call Kate. He said he told Wandelt: “You’re not Madeleine.”
He said: “I made it very clear these were unwanted calls. To be honest, it was a bit of a blur.”
The trial continues.
UK
Badenoch pulls off first conference speech as leader, but it is less clear if this will be her last
There’s no question that Kemi Badenoch’s on the ropes after a low-energy first year as leader that has seen the Conservative Party slide backwards by pretty much every metric.
But on Wednesday, the embattled leader came out swinging with a show-stopping pledge to scrap stamp duty, which left the hall delirious. “I thought you’d like that one,” she said with a laugh as party members cheered her on.
A genuine surprise announcement – many in the shadow cabinet weren’t even told – it gave the Conservatives and their leader a much-needed lift after what many have dubbed the lost year.
Politics latest: Stamp duty to be axed under Tories
Ms Badenoch with her husband, Hamish. Pic: PA
Ms Badenoch tried to answer that criticism this week with a policy blitz, headlined by her promise on stamp duty.
This is a leader giving her party some red meat to try to help her party at least get a hearing from the public, with pledges on welfare, immigration, tax cuts and policing.
In all of it, a tacit admission from Ms Badenoch and her team that as politics speeds up, they have not kept pace, letting Reform UK and Nigel Farage run ahead of them and grab the microphone by getting ahead of the Conservatives on scrapping net zero targets or leaving the ECHR in order to deport illegal migrants more easily.
Ms Badenoch is now trying to answer those criticisms and act.
At the heart of her offer is £47bn of spending cuts in order to pay down the nation’s debt pile and fund tax cuts such as stamp duty.
All of it is designed to try to restore the party’s reputation for economic competence, against a Labour Party of tax rises and a growing debt burden and a Reform party peddling “fantasy economics”.
She needs to do something, and fast. A YouGov poll released on the eve of her speech put the Conservatives joint third in the polls with the Lib Dems on 17%.
That’s 10 percentage points lower than when Ms Badenoch took power just under a year ago. The crisis, mutter her colleagues, is existential. One shadow cabinet minister lamented to me this week that they thought it was “50-50” as to whether the party can survive.
Read more from Sky News:
Starmer blames Tories for China spy trial being dropped
UK won’t give more visas to Indian workers, says PM
(L-R) Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith, shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins and shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly. Pic: PA
Ms Badenoch had to do two things in her speech on Wednesday: the first was to try to reassert her authority over her party. The second was to get a bit of attention from the public with a set of policies that might encourage disaffected Tories to look at her party again.
On the first point, even her critics would have to agree that she had a successful conference and has given herself a bit of space from the constant chatter about her leadership with a headline-grabbing policy that could give her party some much-needed momentum.
On the second, the promise of spending control coupled with a retail offer of tax cuts does carve out a space against the Labour government and Reform.
But the memory of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget, the chaos of Boris Johnson’s premiership, and the failure of Sunak to cut NHS waiting lists or tackle immigration still weigh on the Conservative brand.
Ms Badenoch might have revived the room with her speech, but whether that translates into a wider revival around the country is very hard to read.
Ms Badenoch leaves Manchester knowing she pulled off her first conference speech as party leader: what she will be less sure about is whether it will be her last.
I thought she tacitly admitted that to me when she pointedly avoided answering the question of whether she would resign if the party goes backwards further in the English council, Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd elections next year.
“Let’s see what the election result is about,” was her reply.
That is what many in her party are saying too, because if Ms Badenoch cannot show progress after 18 months in office, she might see her party turn to someone else.
Suspected online hate crimes referred to police have quadrupled already this season in English football, Sky News can reveal.
And we have learned that the football policing unit has urged the government to form a new unit to address racism in the sport.
We have also uncovered new details about the police investigation into the hate received by England star Jess Carter, who revealed to me after the Euros final win that the abuse nearly forced her to stop playing at the tournament.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Lioness Jess Carter: ‘It’s been tough’
But the scale of racism facing footballers is highlighted by the abuse received by Kira Rai – a British Sikh Punjabi – after signing for Peterborough United last month.
They play in the fourth tier, far from the spotlight of the Women’s Super League, but that does not limit the venom targeted at Rai on social media.
She told Sky News: “There were some racial slurs about my heritage, where I come from, that I don’t belong in this country, that I should go back to X country and just sorts of things along those lines.
“I think that’s probably quite difficult to read about yourself at the end of the day.
“It should be a moment for me to celebrate, I’ve just joined a new club.”
What an impact she has made at her new club, scoring an incredible five-minute hat-trick in the FA Cup on Sunday on her home debut.
But the joy is tinged with sadness when we meet the next day.
‘A reflection of society’
“I’ve been in football since I was six, so for people to question whether I belong in football purely based on the colour of my skin, I think is something that’s really difficult to get your head round,” she said.
“It’s probably a reflection of what’s going on in society right now and how prevalent racism has become, and I think football is quite clearly a reflection on society.
“In society, over the last weeks, months, I think there’s almost an underlying tension that’s perhaps not been there in recent years.”
Kira Rai, who plays for Peterborough United, suffered racial slurs about her heritage
‘Depressing’ rise in racism
This is felt by the police unit that has overseen football issues for the last two decades, with racism in stadiums and online rising.
Social media is a growing concern, with 170 referrals already this season of online racism compared to 54 in the first three months of the 2022-23 season and 41 in 2023-24.
“We’re seeing more reports, which is depressing,” Chief Constable Mark Roberts said in an exclusive interview.
“I think we’re also seeing that the number of those reports that actually meet the criminal threshold has increased.”
It’s up to 154 already this season.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts says reports of abuse which meet the criminal threshold has increased
Incidents ‘creeping back’ into stadiums
“There’s an awful lot in the political sphere that people are saying that probably a few years ago just wouldn’t have been thought of, so I think it taps into that broader societal piece which makes it challenging,” the National Police Chiefs Council’s football lead added.
“Sadly that seems to have gone backwards a bit. The lower league grounds now, we are seeing incidents creep back into the games which obviously we’ve got to be really keen to clamp down on and make sure that people face consequences.
“Now whether that’s been driven by people being able to say things or feel that they can say things online and that’s now leaking into the actual stadiums, there is a definite trend to see more of it.”
‘No Room For Racism’ is the Premier League’s attempt to stop racism in football. But is it working? Pic: PA
One of the unit’s most high-profile investigations has been into the racism that led Carter to speak out during England’s run to Euro 2025 and stepping away for a time from social media.
While two arrests have been announced, Sky News can reveal a third person has been arrested. A fourth suspect has also been identified, and six people overseas are under suspicion.
Carter previously told Sky News: “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to come back on the pitch and be me.”
No one has been charged.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
FA considering social media boycott over racism
‘Slippage’ with Musk’s X
Three cases are pending with Elon Musk’s X.
And whether it’s X or Meta-owned Instagram, there is no agreement on the “grossly offensive legal threshold” with policies more tolerable than British law.
Mr Roberts said: “There has been some slippage recently with X that we’re working with them to try to get back to those standards. And I think one of the factual issues we sometimes struggle with is our perception of what is clearly a criminal offence.
“They can sometimes suggest that it doesn’t meet the threshold for their community guidelines, which I find difficult to reconcile really because surely if it meets the criminal prosecution threshold, surely it should breach [their guidelines], and we sometimes have a wrangle about securing information from them.”
England’s Jadon Sancho (L), Marcus Rashford (R) and Bukayo Saka were racially abused after missing penalties during the 2021 Euros final. Pic: AP
A challenge is dealing with international police forces with two-thirds of referrals of racism generated overseas, beyond the jurisdiction of the football policing unit.
While not naming particular countries, Mr Roberts said abuse posted from Eastern Europe and Asia is the main problem.
“The level of interest from some countries varies,” he said. “Some just aren’t interested. We won’t get a response. Others will try and take positive action.”
The approach of English football can seem somewhat disjointed if different campaigns and anti-racism investigations are run by different parts of the game.
Read more from Sky News:
Antoine Semenyo backs jailing abusers
FA could boycott social media over racism
Tennis star denies being racist
For Mr Roberts, that could ideally be enhanced.
“I would like a joint function to tackle online hate with ourselves, the football bodies, Kick It Out and others, ideally supported by government, so that we can do it in a really coherent, joined-up way,” he said in our interview at Cheshire Police HQ.
“I think that would make a massive difference, whether it’s education, whether in-stadium hate, whether it’s online hate.
“The way we’re going to tackle this most effectively is by doing it in a joined-up way where we’re mutually supportive. So I think that’s something we’d be keen to pursue.”
So would those who have been the target of abuse just for doing what they love – playing football.
‘No one wants to talk about this’
Kira Rai, a role model for British South Asians in football, said: “Perhaps there needs to be an overhaul, everyone needs to come together and actually deal with these uncomfortable conversations because they’re not necessarily fun conversations that we have.
“No one really wants to talk about this, and I can understand why. For real change, for genuine change to actually occur, you have to have these difficult conversations.
“You have to listen to player stories, to fan stories, to anyone’s stories in football, in society, to actually get to the bottom of it.”
And as some players showed last weekend in the Women’s Super League, change does not come by taking a knee, but taking a stand.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024