Manchester Arena blast victim hopes legal action will stop trolling

Lisa Bridgett was seriously injured in the attack at Manchester Arena

A woman who was seriously injured in the Manchester Arena bombing says she hopes legal action against a conspiracy theorist will stop false stories spreading about the victims in future.

Lisa Bridgett who lives near Pwllheli, Gwynedd, lost a finger after the Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

Richard D Hall claims the attack was staged and is being sued for defamation and harassment by two other victims.

He has not responded to a BBC request for comment.

"I want it to prevent people from saying things aren't true when they are true facts," Ms Bridgett said.

She was also hit in the face by shrapnel at at the concert, which she had attended with her daughter and her daughter's friend.

Martin and Eve Hibbert, who were left with severe disabilities after the 2017 blast, are suing Mr Hall for defamation and harassment, the first time such action has been launched in the UK against a conspiracy theorist.

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Mr Hall went to the boatyard where Lisa worked in 2019 with the aim of secretly recording her to see if she was lying about her injuries.

"He didn't make it to me, he spoke to a member of staff but we're a shop," she said. "If he'd asked to see me he would've got me."

She added: "Why would anybody make up all of our injuries and different circumstances?

"I was really shocked somebody would go out of their way to produce such rubbish and accuse us all of lying and acting it out. It was disgusting that he would write it and people would listen to it."

She was contacted by the BBC Panorama programme who alerted her to videos about her on Richard Hall's social media account.

"He was with a woman in one video and she sat and picked holes in our mannerisms from interviews and said we were making it up and they were laughing together.

"It was awful, it made us so cross and angry that they could make fun of us," Ms Bridgett said.

"He said we we were all in it together and it was a big joke. It wasn't a joke. This was a true life event that we're all having to live with for the rest of our lives."