The British newspaper, The Daily Mail, quoted details of the ongoing investigations into the 2017 suicide attack in Manchester. This terror attack left 22 people dead, in addition to injuring hundreds.
The newspaper refers to a possible security vulnerability left by police officers. This allowed the attacker, Salman Abedi, and his younger brother, Hashem, to carry out their plot.
The investigation found that the British Transport Police (BTP) constable, Jessica Bullough, was responsible for securing the entrance the assailants used. She was on a two-hour break to “buy kebabs” with colleague Mark Renshaw, a police community support officer, thus exceeding the time limit for a lunch break.
The counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney QC asked her: “When you look back, does that seem to be acceptable?” Mrs Bullough replied: “No, unacceptable.”
During the investigation, footage was displayed showing the moment Abedi entered the scene with the investigation lawyer commenting, “You had just missed Salman Abedi walking to the City Room from the train platform. Obviously, we all know what he is about to do but if you had come on patrol 10 minutes earlier and you had seen that man walking in that way would you have regarded him as suspicious?”
The policewoman replied: “Even though it was a train station with people traveling with large rucksacks on their back… looking at the footage, if he had walked past me with that bag on his back, I probably would have asked him what was in it.”
Last August, British courts sentenced Hashem Abedi to “life without the right to release him before the passage of 55 years.” Hashem was charged with 22 counts of murder and attempted murder, and for planning a suicide attack.