Parents of 8-year-old Manchester bombing victim demand transparency over inquiry into attack

‘All I hear is lessons learned, but lessons haven’t been learned, and lessons will never be learned unless we get that transparency and honesty,’ says Andrew Roussos

The parents of an eight-year-old girl who was the youngest person killed in the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 have called for transparency as the public inquiry into the terror attack begins.

Saffie Roussos was one of 22 people killed by suicide bomber Salman Abedi at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.

The public inquiry to investigate the events before, during and after the attack begins on Monday and will be held in a specially converted room in the Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court building.

It will examine alleged failures to prevent the bombing, as it was revealed that Abedi was known to security service and had been put under active investigation over terrorist links twice. However, when he travelled back to the UK from Libya four days before the attack, no alert was triggered.

Saffie’s parents, Andrew and Lisa Roussos, called for answers about how the aftermath of the attack was handled and raised concerns about transparency during the inquiry.

Mr Roussos told the BBC: “All I hear is lessons learned, but lessons haven’t been learned, and lessons will never be learned unless we get that transparency and honesty from the people involved to get the answers that we need.”

He suggested that a barrister from each of the six firms representing the bereaved families be allowed to remain in the hearing.

“Obviously you’re having to put your full trust in the (inquiry) chairman,” said Mr Roussos.

“But this inquiry is not about trust, it should be about transparency, and I feel that we won’t get that without having a representative in the room.”

Mrs Roussos was in the arena with her daughter when the attack took place, and was temporarily paralysed due to her injuries.

She told the BBC the “worst thing” for her was that Saffie and the other victims “could have been saved”.

“How could they leave injured people in the arena for hours? It’s just madness,” she said. “I remember lying there thinking help will be here soon and in the end it felt like I was lying there for hours.”

Experts today told the inquiry there were missed opportunities to identify Abedi as a suicide bomber print to the attack, as he was reported to police and security in the minutes before detonating his bomb, but no action was taken.

One member of the public spotted Abedi wearing a large back pack and thought he was praying, less than an hour before he detonated his bomb, and another told a British Transport Police officer, the inquiry was told.

Additional reporting by PA