We really want to believe their apologies but it's difficult

Brother of Arena bomb victim on report into failures by the emergency services

- JOHN SCHEERHOUT

THE DEVASTATING report which exposed the failures of the emergency services on the night of the Manchester Arena attack also highlighted how predictable that failure was.

Partly because of austerity cuts, Greater Manchester Police failed to keep up-to-date plans in place for major incidents and then, when a key training exercise revealed a key command position would become overwhelmed in the event of a real attack, they failed to learn lessons, Sir John Saunders' highly-critical report says.

GMP and the other blue light services criticised in his report - following a long-running public inquiry, say they have updated their plans, enhanced training and improved communication between the blue light services, which almost totally failed in the first hour of the May 2017 attack, which claimed 22 lives.

Lee Hunter, the brother of beauty therapist Lisa Lees, 43 who died in the attack, has said he remains cynical and struggles to accept official apologies in a frank interview with the M.E.N.

"There was a systemic failure across the board," he said. "We have been treated well as a family by the police but at the same time it's hard to accept their apologies. We really want to believe them but it's difficult.

"If things do change like they have promised, we want it to be evidenced. Over the course of the inquiry, it has been like the layers of an onion. It was one thing after another. It was across the board. We know people on the ground wanted to be there and help but the problems we have learned about have just kept on getting deeper and deeper.