Manchester Arena Inquiry: Agencies 'reluctant' to criticise

Salman Abedi detonated a home-made device at an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017

A fear of seeming rude can prevent criticism of emergency services' performance, the Manchester Arena inquiry has heard.

The probe into the 2017 bombing has been listening to evidence from the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum.

It heard a terrorist firearms exercise held in the city in 2016 "raised significant issues" about police response.

But the GMRF chairman said he was not made aware of any problems at the time.

The GMRF is comprised of members from emergency services and local authorities to ensure "a co-ordinated response" when "there is an emergency such as a terrorist attack", the inquiry was told.

The firearms exercise took place a year before 22 people were killed when Salman Abedi detonated a home-made device at an Ariana Grande concert hosted by the arena on 22 May 2017.

Counsel to the inquiry, Paul Greaney QC, said upcoming evidence from the 2016 exercise may show "the very things that were identified as going wrong" went wrong on the night of the attack.

He said the training event "identified weaknesses in shared situational awareness", where the Greater Manchester Police force duty officer was overloaded to the point he was unable adequately to fulfil his role.

A total of 22 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the 2017 bombing

Paul Argyle was chairman of the GMRF and deputy county fire officer for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service at the time of the training and of the attack.

He told the inquiry on Monday "no significant issues" had been brought to his attention following the 2016 exercise.

He added: "I do think there may be reluctance during the debrief process for criticism to be made of other agencies for fear of appearing to be rude."

Mr Greaney asked Mr Argyle whether weaknesses about overloading the force duty officer should have come to the attention of the GMRF.

Mr Argyle replied: "I think that would have been the right thing to do, to bring that forward."

The inquiry continues.