The 999 services fully accepted the findings of volume two of the Manchester Arena Inquiry into the suicide bombing of May 2017, published yesterday by Inquiry chair Sir John Saunders, covering the emergency services.
Stephen Watson, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Constable said that beyond the selflessness and professionalism of so many front-line staff, however, GMP coordination of the response to this atrocity was inadequate. He said: “We had failed to plan effectively, and the execution of that which had been planned, was simply not good enough. Our actions were substantially inadequate and fell short of what the public had every right to expect. For this, I apologise unreservedly.”
GMP is now in a fundamentally stronger position than it was in 2017, Mr Watson said. That includes all GMP vehicles issued with enhanced first aid kits which include torniquets and ‘significantly enhanced’ numbers of defibrillators routinely available to police. For Mr Watson’s statement in full visit the GMP website.
You can read the near 900 pages of the report including appendices on the Inquiry website.
Whether GMP or British Transport Police were or should be responsible for the Arena, as it’s next door to Victoria railway station, was among the moot points raised by the Inquiry. BTP Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi said that she was ‘truly sorry’. Only last month at Consec, the annual conference of the Association of Security Consultants at Twickenham, Paul Greaney counsel to the Inquiry recalled the lack of BTP patrolling at the Arena on the night of Monday, May 22, 2017, against the instructions of the sergeant in charge. Lucy D’Orsi hinted at this when she said: “Significant errors were made in the hours leading up to this horrendous attack and in the immediate aftermath. Our planning and preparation was inadequate to respond to an incident of this magnitude.”
She said: “There were mistakes and misjudgements, but there was also compassion and bravery. Police officers and staff who ran towards the attack without hesitation, as well as security staff and members of the public. In the time that has passed, those responders have also carried the trauma of that night. They too, deserve our support.”
For her response in full visit the BTP website.
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) Chief Fire Officer, Dave Russel, said that the volume two report made ‘for very difficult reading for me’ and colleagues. Fire response that night was ‘wholly inadequate and totally ineffective, and that will forever be a matter of deep regret for our Service. We let the families and the public down in their time of need and for that I am truly sorry.’
Mr Russel said, as Inquiry findings set out, response for firefighters was ‘simply too late’. “But five years on from the attack, I want the public to know that this will never happen again.
“Today’s Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service is better prepared, better equipped, better trained, better exercised and more resilient.
“The Kerslake Review, set up by the Mayor of Greater Manchester after the attack, identified a number of recommendations which we have already put in place to improve and drive meaningful change within our Service. And these changes have been tested during the multi-agency response to many major incidents and in recent years.”
Mr Russel also addressed what he termed ‘a complete failure in multi-agency working’. In his introduction to volume two yesterday Sir John Saunders detailed JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles), the doctrine and language for working on an incident, before, during and after – visit www.jesip.org.uk.
Mr Russel said a radio channel now guarantees immediate contact 24/7 between blue light services and control rooms. A National Inter Agency Liaison Officer is now co-located with GMP’s Force Duty Officer during working hours, with a dedicated emergency phone line for all other times.
“There is greater investment in training, multi-agency exercising and increased emphasis on decision making autonomy, meaning Incident Commanders can confidently make decisions with discretion,” he said, and ‘wholesale changes’ have been made to organisational learning and debrief processes. And a more resilient Marauding Terrorist Attack capability for Greater Manchester, sees every firefighter being fully trained and every fire appliance better equipped to respond to all forms of terrorist or mass casualty incident, he said.
Mr Russel’s comments however did not include extra pay for his firefighters – Sir Thomas Winsor, while Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Fire & Rescue Services, in September 2021 wrote to the London Fire Commissioner and the Chief Fire Officer of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service regarding a then proposed pay increase to compensate firefighters for responding to marauding terrorist attacks.
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said that the city’s Fire and Rescue Service ‘is currently training all of its firefighters to respond in that eventuality, equipping all pumps with the capability and, alongside London, is the first fire service in the country to do so’.
“With regards to Greater Manchester Police, what this inquiry reveals is very troubling,” Mr Burnham went on. “It is barely believable to me, given my request to them to co-operate fully with the Kerslake Report, that our police force back then provided an inaccurate account of their actions nine months after the attack, which was signed off by the former Chief Constable [Ian Hopkins], something which he accepted in evidence in 2021 was a, quote, “grave error”.
“It is my view that the [GMP] Force tried to stick for too long to a corporate narrative that suggested it had acted effectively.
“That wasn’t just disrespectful to the families and those injured; it had the effect of misleading myself and the Deputy Mayor, denied everyone the opportunity to learn and delayed the action needed to improve the force.
“This is sadly something we have seen in the aftermath of other disasters and a pattern that keeps on repeating.”
As background, the Kerslake Report was published in March 2018, as commissioned by Andy Burnham; chaired by Lord Kerslake as a review into Manchester’s preparedness and response to the Arena attack. Visit https://www.kerslakearenareview.co.uk/.
Head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes, said police had not waited for the Inquiry to conclude to strengthen readiness and our resources. He said: “Since 2017, policing has worked shoulder to shoulder, locally and nationally, to make sure robust plans are in place to help police forces respond to terrorist attacks. Ensuring those plans are well-understood and well-practised across emergency services has been our focus. The report makes it very clear that this work is critically important and must continue. As we absorb the details, we will be searching for and exploring every opportunity to enhance our efforts to keep people and our country safe.”
For North West Ambulance Servic (NWAS) Chief Executive Daren Mochrie’s statement at a press conference on volume two’s launch yesterday visit the NWAS website.
Background
The Manchester Arena Inquiry, a statutory public inquiry, was set up by Home Secretary Priti Patel in 2019 to investigate the deaths in the attack on the Manchester Arena. You can also view both volumes of the Inquiry at gov.uk.
