Emergency services were not told about ‘significant’ problems with their plans for responding to a possible terror attack ‘for fear of appearing rude’, Manchester Arena inquiry hears
- Training exercise in 2016 ‘raised significant issues,’ with emergency response
- Scenario of attack revealed ‘poor communication,’ between emergency services
- ‘Overload’ of duty police officer left them ‘unable to adequately fulfill his role’
- Failings may have had impact on response to the Manchester Arena bombings
Emergency services were not told about ‘significant’ problems with their plans to response to terror attacks, out of ‘fear of appearing rude,’ an inquiry in the Manchester Arena bombings has heard.
In May 2016, 12 months before Salman Abedi killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert, emergency services in Manchester took part in a training exercise to test how ready they were for a terror attack.
The scenario, dubbed Operation Winchester Accord, tested the emergency response to a marauding terrorist gunman at the Trafford Centre – less than 10 miles away from Manchester Arena.
An ongoing inquiry into the May 2017 terror attack found the training exercise a year before exposed ‘significant issues,’ with communication between emergency services, as well as the workload being assigned to one officer, who was left ‘unable to adequately fulfill his role’.
A training exercise in May 2016 revealed ‘significant issues,’ with communication between police and other emergency services in the event of a terror attack. Pictured: Police responding to the Manchester Arena bombings in May 2017 – 12 months after the training scenario
Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, said evidence may show that the May 2016 exercise, named Operation Winchester Accord, ‘raised significant issues’.
But such matters did not come to the attention of the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum (GMRF), its chairman at the time said.
The forum’s members include emergency services and local authorities, who work together to ‘ensure that there is a co-ordinated response by the emergency services when there is an emergency such as a terrorist attack,’ Mr Greaney explained.
He told the inquiry upcoming evidence ‘may reveal’ that the 2016 exercise ‘raised significant issues of the application of the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (Jesip)’.
The 2016 scenario also revealed one duty officer’s workload left him ‘unable to adequately fulfill his role,’ in the event of a terror attack. An inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombings heard these concerns were never raised ‘for fear of being rude’
He added: ‘It identified weaknesses in shared situational awareness, and poor interagency communication, and the evidence may also identify that there was a serious overload of the GMP (Greater Manchester Police) force duty officer (FDO) to the point at which the FDO was unable adequately to fulfil his role, to the detriment of the GMP response and indeed the multi-agency response.’
Paul Argyle, who was the deputy county fire officer for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) – ‘number two’ within the service – at the time of the exercise and of the attack, was also chairman of the GMRF.
A statement read to the inquiry today from Mr Argyle revealed ‘no significant issues,’ had been brought to his attention following the 2016 exercise at the Trafford Centre .
He added: ‘I have been asked why these matters were not drawn to GMRF’s attention. In my experience the debrief process is of course only as good as the information that is fed into it.
‘I do think that there may be reluctance during the debrief process for criticism to be made of other agencies for fear of appearing to be rude.’
Salman Abedi, 22, detonated his rucksack bomb in the City Room of the arena, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds more among the 14,000 crowd leaving an Ariana Grande concert
After reading the statement, Mr Greaney put it to Mr Argyle that it would be reasonable ‘that information about weaknesses in the application of Jesip, about the overloading of the FDO, is something which should have come to the attention of GMRF?’
Mr Argyle replied: ‘I think that would have been the right thing to do, to bring that forward.’
The inquiry is hearing evidence covering the emergency response to the 2017 terror attack in which suicide bomber Salman Abedi, 22, detonated his rucksack bomb in the City Room of the arena, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds more among the 14,000 crowd leaving an Ariana Grande concert.