The third and final report arising from the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena terrorist bombing is due to be published next month, it's been confirmed.
The report, due to be released on March 2, has been compiled on evidence heard surrounding the planning and preparation that was carried out for the attack by the Abedi brothers, the radicalisation of mass murderer Salman Abedi and whether the atrocity could have been prevented.
It's likely to crucially address what was known by the security services and counter-terror policing prior to the atrocity, but wide redactions are expected as certain evidence was heard behind closed doors for reasons of national security.
READ MORE: Failings, family reaction and 'unreserved' apologies - key points from volume II
MI5 didn't tell police about intelligence 'highly relevant to the planned attack' just months before the bombing, the public inquiry was told. At the time, suicide bomber Salman Abedi was a 'closed subject of interest' but 'continued to be referenced from time-to-time' in intelligence reports, an official report into the terror attacks in the UK in 2017 stated.
The inquiry heard that on two separate occasions in the months before the attack, intelligence on Abedi was received by MI5 which was not 'fully appreciated' at the time.
It was assessed to 'relate not to terrorism, but to possible non-nefarious activity or to criminality on the part of Salman Abedi'. But, the inquiry was told, the two items of intelligence were later, in retrospect, said to have been 'highly relevant to the planned attack'.
Abedi, 22, detonated a bomb in a rucksack as crowds left an Ariana Grande concert at the Hunt's Bank venue on May 22, 2017. The attack claimed 22 lives.
The Arena atrocity was the deadliest terrorist attack in the UK since the 7/7 London bombings in 2005. There were 13 preliminary hearings before the inquiry began in September, 2020, and 194 days of oral evidence given in total.
Over that period the inquiry, which came to a conclusion in February, 2022, heard from 267 witnesses - and from as many as 24 expert witnesses.
Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders published his first report into security arrangements at the Arena in the summer of 2021. In it he said suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, should have been identified as a 'threat' and challenged. 'Disruptive intervention' should have been taken against him - and lives could have been saved as a result, Sir John found.
"Had that occurred, I consider it likely that Salman Abedi would still have detonated his device, but the loss of life and injury is highly likely to have been less," he said. The report was critical of SMG, the owners of the Arena, the stewarding company Showsec, and British Transport Police (BTP)
In the second report on the response of the emergency services to the bombing - expected to be the largest of the three - Sir John said he found one of the 22 victims who died following the explosion, 28-year-old John Atkinson from Radcliffe, could have been saved if not for the 'inadequate' response of police, paramedics and fire crews,.
There was also a 'remote possibility' the youngest victim, Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, would have survived, the report concluded.
There was widespread criticism of the emergency services with firefighters, who could have helped with the removal of casualties from the blast zone, eventually arriving at the Arena two hours after the explosion.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) estimate there were 940 victims of the attack who survived. Of those, 337 people were in the City Room blast zone at the time of the explosion and a further 92 people were in the immediate vicinity.
Of the victims, 237 people were physically injured. A total of 111 people required hospital treatment, with 91 categorised as being seriously or very seriously injured.
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