The Law vs. the Truth: What Happened in Manchester?

Part 14 - Locating The Fallen

Part 14 - Locating the Fallen

Introduction

Virtually every legacy media article on the Manchester Arena incident begins with, or includes, this image or similar:

The emotive power of this image is almost impossible to overstate. 15 of the 22 are young people; some are children; 17 of the 22 are female. Six were schoolgirls: Saffie-Rose Roussos, aged just 8; Nell Jones, 14; Eilidh MacLeod, 14; Sorrell Leczkowski, 14; Olivia Campbell-Hardy, 15; and Megan Hurley, 15. Other young people included Chloe Rutherford, 17; Liam Curry, 19; Courtney Boyle, 19; and Georgina Callander, 18. The sea of balloons and flowers confirms the public outpouring of grief.

This, then, is the starting point of any public thinking about the Manchester Arena incident: namely, a visceral appeal to emotion that serves to overwhelm reason and critical thinking.

Detachment and a cold, forensic appraisal of the evidence are immediately overridden by a sense of horror and outrage that all these innocent people were killed, especially the youngest.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May stated:

All acts of terrorism are cowardly attacks on innocent people, but this attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenceless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives […] We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but an opportunity for carnage.

US President Donald Trump stated:

Innocent little girls and so many others were horribly murdered and badly injured whilst attending a concert. Beautiful lives with so much great potential, torn from their families for ever and ever. It was a barbaric and vicious attack upon our civilisation.

At the Inquiry, the faces of the 22 were on prominent display throughout, right next to the Chairman, Sir John Saunders:

Source: YouTube

In Saunders’ words, “It is ironic that so many of the victims of this evil act were especially full of life and talented too” (p. 79).

Each volume of the Inquiry report begins with a page naming “The Twenty-two Who Died.” Volume 2.1 of the Inquiry report includes 2-page tributes to each of the 22, including their photographs. A “pen portrait” of each of the 22, written by loved ones, was read out, either by the families or their legal representatives, during Chapter 4 and Chapter 12 hearings, while a photograph was displayed.

As a consequence of this incredibly powerful appeal to emotion, it is almost impossible to think dispassionately about the Manchester Arena attack.

Resisting the Appeal to Emotion

The gigantic emotional impact of the official Manchester Arena narrative is the main reason why I have left the highly sensitive issues of fatalities and casualties until the end of this series.

If you have read the series in the correct order, you will have been exposed to extensive evidence that:

• the primary empirical evidence is incompatible with the detonation of a TATP shrapnel bomb (see Part 2);

• the show trial of Richard D. Hall was intended to send out a clear message to the “alternative” media and investigative journalists not to look into the Manchester Arena incident, or indeed speak truth to power in any meaningful way (see Parts 3-8);

• the serious failures at Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels of command across all four emergency services on the night are almost certainly non-accidental and point strongly in the direction of co-ordinated stand down orders (see Part 9);

• MI5 and Counter Terrorism appear to have their fingerprints all over the Manchester Arena incident, which bears the hallmarks of an exercise conducted for the purpose of pursuing illegitimate “War on Terror” objectives (see Part 10);

• multiple possible operatives on the night can be identified based on primary empirical evidence (see Part 11);

• Operation Manteline was controlled by the same intelligence operation, and its findings are to be treated with caution (see Part 12);

• the Inquiry’s primary purpose was not getting to the bottom of what happened, but, rather, the opposite, i.e., narrative control (see Part 13).

Only armed with such information is it possible to approach the issue of what happened to the named victims with an appropriate level of critical distance.

We should remember, too, in the “War on Terror” context, that children were cynically being manipulated as propaganda props across a range of issue areas in the years leading up to 2017. For example, just in relation to Syria, there was the 2013 BBC documentary Saving Syria’s Children (alleged by Robert Stuart to contain staged footage), the shocking 2015 image of a young boy allegedly washed up on a beach in Turkey, the “dusty boy of Aleppo” in 2016, and the Bana Alabed farce in 2017 — all part of what the Grayzone in 2018 called “The Syria Deception” involving “Big Lies and little children.”

Because ordinary, decent people would not imagine that children could be used in this way on their trusted legacy media, their common decency is easily exploited.

We must be cognisant, however, that in the context of NATO propaganda at the time, legacy media pieces about the suffering and death of young children are not to be taken at face value.

The following analysis seeks to remove the emotion and to concentrate instead on matters of empirically verifiable fact.

It deals purely with where the 22 named fatalities fell. It does not address what happened to them or the nature of their injuries. It does analyse imagery from the City Room captured shortly after detonation. The fate of Salman Abedi is also discussed.

Because of the grim nature of the subject matter, readers are advised to exercise their discretion before continuing.

Where Did They Fall?

Recall that the Inquiry took the place of the 22 inquests, whose goal was to establish the circumstances around each of the deaths.

One of the basic findings that a multi-year, £31.6 million Inquiry should have produced is a diagram confirming where each of the victims was located at the moment of detonation and/or where they fell.

The Inquiry failed to produced that information.

This seems astonishing, given that:

• media attempts to establish that information were made within 36 hours of the incident;

• the first inquests hearing on June 9, 2017, provided a map showing unnamed victim locations;

• during the Hashem Abedi trial on May 4, 2020, “Jurors were shown an illustration of where the 22 victims of the bombing fell when the IED was detonated” (according to the Telegraph); and

• the BBC produced such a map in November 2022, even citing the Inquiry as its source, for the first time naming the victims.

Why, then, did the Inquiry not want the public to be able to see exactly where the victims fell?

Media Reports on May 24, 2017

As discussed in Part 10, within 36 hours of the Manchester Arena incident, the New York Times reported on information supposedly leaked from Operation Manteline. It provided the first image in the public domain of where victims allegedly fell:

Source: New York Times

The obvious problem with this image (apart from Abedi’s torso being found in the Arena concourse — see Part 11) is that it only includes 16 victims, not 22.

The London Times reproduced the same information, only moving an unnamed Michelle Kiss half way up the steps to the mezzanine:

Source: The Times

The Sun also reproduced a crude version of the New York Times image, omitting Kiss altogether:

Source: The Sun

Note that these early media reports do not appear to include Kelly Brewster or John Atkinson, whose locations were distinct (as we will see).

They also imply that in a crowded City Room, with a suicide bomber trying to kill and maim as many people as possible, no one was within two metres of Salman Abedi, or somehow survived if they were.

Source: Richplanet.net. One second before the official detonation time, Abedi would have been located just out of view, centre left.

The Inquests Handout on June 9, 2017

To my knowledge, the only official attempt to plot the locations of the 22 when they fell was a handout produced at the first inquests hearing on June 9, 2017. The Guardian reported on this as follows:

The court, sitting at the Manchester civil justice centre, was shown diagrams of the arena, with coloured circles showing where each person died. Abedi was allocated a red dot. His victims, aged from eight to 51, were given pink dots. A circle of pink dots formed a ring around the red, with others scattered in the furthest corners of the foyer.

The Guardian did not show those diagrams, but the BBC had the following:

Source: BBC

Here, for the first time, we see all 22 victims positioned in the City Room, albeit unnamed.

Despite being based on Operation Manteline evidence, the image contains two notable discrepancies vis-à-vis Operation Manteline’s final positioning of victims as per Part 18 of the Inquiry report and transcripts of the hearings:

1. The centre right dot, unmistakably representing Kiss, is, in keeping with the New York Times image, positioned in front of the steps to the mezzanine instead of at the top of those steps.

2. The dot to the far left is positioned too far away from the seat of blast, given that 19 of the 22 were officially within 6 metres of the detonation site at the time of blast (Atkinson made it to the pillar in front of the box office before collapsing).

The BBC’s Naming of the Victims By Their Location in November 2022

The only “official” diagram that I know of to name the victims by location was published by the BBC on November 3, 2022. The BBC states that the Manchester Arena Inquiry was the source of that diagram, but I can find no evidence of that.

Source: BBC

The victims as named and placed by the BBC can be plotted on an Operation Manteline map showing distance from the seat of blast:

Here, those egressing from the concert are marked in blue and those waiting in orange. The space between the orange lines marks the most direct path from the Arena concourse doors to the exit doors to the footbridge and train station. The blue arrows show where Atkinson [21] and Tweddle [22] managed to move to before collapsing, and where Atkinson [21], Roussos [3] and Callander [4] were subsequently evacuated. “Corner of the City Room” is a phrase used in the summaries of evidence in the transcripts; Callander [4] is said to have been headed in the direction both of that corner and the merchandise stall.

Prima facie, the BBC’s positioning of victims makes sense. Those waiting are mostly clustered centrally, allowing for an overview of those coming out, and they are positioned towards the orange line closest to the mezzanine steps, rather than the orange line near the merchandise stall where the stream of egress was most intense:

Source: Richplanet.net, with my annotations in orange

Conversely, with the exception of Brewster [19], who was walking towards the exit in the top right of the diagram, and Campbell-Hardy [14] and Atkinson [21] (who each may also have been headed in that direction), the young people egressing from the concert seem to be heading for the doors to the footbridge and train station.

On the other hand, the BBC diagram suggests that remarkably few fatalities were located between the seat of blast and the doors from the Arena concourse, whence large numbers of people were exiting, which seems odd.

With few exceptions, the 22 named victims can be accurately mapped, not only by their stated locations according to the BBC, but also by their distance from the seat of blast in the Inquiry report. The exceptions are Callander [4] and Lees [18], both of whom the Inquiry report places only 4 metres away (§18.55; §18.86); Kiss, who is given as 20 metres away (§18.104); and Roussos [3], who should be 5 metres away (§18.129).

The discrepancies in relation to Callander and Lees are small and can be easily adjusted without affecting anything material.

The discrepancy in relation to Kiss probably has something to do with the last publicly available CCTV image of Kiss, in which she is standing roughly in the position shown by the BBC less than two minutes before the official detonation time. Presumably the BBC did not check Volume 2 of the the Inquiry report (published that day) to see that Kiss was officially at the top of the steps at 22:31:00.

Source: Richplanet.net

The large discrepancy in relation to Roussos seems inexplicable.

Locations of the Deceased According to Inquiry Transcripts

According to Sophie Cartwright QC, “For each of the deceased, Operation Manteline established “their location in the City Room at the time of the detonation” (p. 95). If so, then those precise locations have not been revealed to the public.

The evidence summaries for each of the 22 were read out, with live evidence being taken in seven cases, as follows:

• Day 150: Angelika Klis, Marcin Klis, Courtney Boyle,

• Day 151: Philip Tron, Olivia Campbell-Hardy, Michelle Kiss, Jane Tweddle.

• Day 152: Lisa Lees, Alison Howe, Wendy Fawell, Nell Jones.

• Day 153: Megan Hurley, Eilidh MacLeod, Sorrell Leczkowski.

• Day 154: Kelly Brewster, Chloe Rutherford, Liam Curry.

• Day 155: Georgina Callander.

• Day 156: Martyn Hett, Elaine McIver.

• Days 158, 159, 160: John Atkinson.

• Days 174, 175, 176, 177, 178: Saffie-Rose Roussos.

The relevant sections of the Inquiry transcripts concerning the locations of the 22 fatalities, as stated by DCI Russell unless otherwise noted, are given below, in the order corresponding to the BBC labelling above.

For three of the 22 (in addition to Kiss above), and possibly four, CCTV imagery from shortly before the official detonation time is also included.

The accounts are assumed to be compatible with the BBC’s positioning of victims unless stated otherwise in a bullet point.

Sorrell Leczkowski [1]

Pauline, Samantha and Sorrell stood near to the exit doors of the City Room to wait. Sorrell was approximately 6 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 71)

Wendy Fawell [2]

Wendy entered the City Room [from the footbridge] with Caroline at 22.30.24. They walked across the City Room, heading towards the arena doors. Wendy and Caroline had moved apart from each other in order not to miss their children as more people were exiting the arena. Wendy was approximately 5 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (pp. 17-18)

Saffie-Rose Roussos [3]

At the conclusion of the concert, Saffie−Rose, her mother and her sister are seen entering the City Room from the concourse area at 22.30.45. They are seen to walk across the City Room in the direction of the exit doors which lead towards Victoria Station.

Saffie−Rose was approximately 5 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 12)

• There is a significant discrepancy between Roussos’s placement next to the doors to the Arena concourse on the BBC diagram and a location 5 metres from the seat of blast in the direction of the exit doors to the station, which she had 15 seconds to reach.

Georgina Callander [4]

MS CARTWRIGHT […] After walking through the exit doors into the City Room, Georgina and her friend walked towards the corner of the City Room. Her friend remembers that Georgina was walking towards a merchandise stall and she was following behind her. She recalls that Georgina turned back towards her and smiled, before starting to run towards the merchandise stall.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR RUSSELL: Georgina was approximately 4 metres from the bomber at the time of the detonation (p. 6).

• The BBC places Callander further than 4 metres away from the seat of blast.

Martyn Hett [5]

Martyn entered the City Room [from the Arena concourse doors] at 22.28.42. He walked around the City Room whilst using his mobile phone before he walked into the corner of the City Room at 22.30.42. (p. 8)

Martyn was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 9)

Eilidh MacLeod [6]

Eilidh and her friend entered the City Room at 22.30.49. They walked towards the corner of the room. Eilidh was walking just behind her friend. Eilidh was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 65)

Elaine McIver [7]

Paul and Elaine returned to Victoria Train Station just after 22.00. They approached the City Room at 22.06.18. (p. 45)

Paul and Elaine entered the City Room at 22.06.23. Elaine was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 46)

Megan Hurley [8]

Megan and [her brother] Bradley entered the City Room at 22.30.49. They walked towards the exit doors that led to Victoria Station. Megan was approximately 3 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 5)

According to Sophie Cartwright QC, Bradley “provided a map of where he and Megan were in the City Room” (p. 5). However, Bradley gave evidence on the afternoon of July 22, 2021, after Martin Hibbert had given evidence that same morning. As noted in Part 6, anomalously, no evidence documents are available for that day.

Nell Jones [9]

They left the arena after the final song of the concert. Nell entered the City Room at 22.30.43 and walked towards the corner of the City Room. Nell was approximately 2 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 26)

Liam Curry [10] and Chloe Rutherford [11]

Chloe and Liam left the arena and entered the City Room at 22.30.49. Chloe and Liam walked across the City Room side by side (p. 99). [Direction and distance from seat of blast not specified]

Angelika Klis [12] and Marcin Klis [13]

Marcin and Angelika returned to Victoria Station at 21.45. They entered the City Room at 22.23.40. Marcin and Angelika stood in the City Room with their arms around each other at 22.28.56. They were standing towards the arena doors. They remained standing in this position until 22.30.59. Marcin was approximately 5 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation and Angelika was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 105)

Olivia Campbell-Hardy [14]

Olivia and Adam entered the City Room at 22.30.51. They then walked across the City Room [direction not specified]. Olivia was approximately 5 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation (p. 17).

Philip Tron [15]

After entering the City Room at 22.22.11, Philip and Courtney walked across the City Room and stood near to the merchandise stand. Philip was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of the detonation (p. 8).

Courtney Boyle [16]

Courtney entered the City Room at 22.22.11. After entering the City Room at 22.22.11, she stood with Philip Tron near to the merchandise stand. Courtney was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of the detonation (p. 118).

• The BBC positioning makes sense assuming that Tron and Boyle moved away from the merchandise stall before the time of the detonation.

Alison Howe [17]

Alison and Lisa waited near to the arena exit doors. Alison was standing slightly to the left of Lisa at 22.30. Alison was approximately 3 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p.11)

Lisa Lees [18]

Lisa and Alison waited near to the arena exit doors. Alison was standing slightly to the left of Lisa at 22.30. Lisa was approximately 4 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 4)

• Howe and Lees can be seen waiting at 22:28:01 in the location below, directly between the CCTV camera and the pillar next to the ticket office, in positions consistent with their summaries of evidence. The BBC diagram, therefore, places Lees too far away from Howe.

Source: Richplanet.net

Kelly Brewster [19]

They followed the crowd to the nearest exit and entered the City Room at 22.30.53 (p. 5).

MS CARTWRIGHT: Sir, it’s confirmed that Kelly was 9 metres from the detonation at the time of the bomb. (p. 40)

The dark-haired woman ringed in yellow below may be Kelly Brewster. She is in the correct position, and she appears to be talking to the woman ringed in white, whom Pighooey has identified as Claire Booth, Kelly’s sister (01:14:00). This would suggest that the other female ringed in yellow is Claire’s 12-year-old daughter, Hollie, whom the two adults made sure stayed between them during egress.

Source: Richplanet.net

Michelle Kiss [20]

At 22.29.24, Michelle and Ruth walked up the steps that led towards JD Williams. At 22.29.41, Michelle is stood at the top of the steps with Ruth just standing to her left. Michelle was approximately 20 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. At 22.31, Michelle fell to the ground following the explosion. (p. 23)

• As noted above, the discrepancy between the BBC’s positioning of Kiss at the bottom of the steps and the summary of evidence placing her at the top could have to do with the 22:28:14 CCTV image that shows her at the bottom.

John Atkinson [21]

John was approximately 6 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. CCTV shows that at 22.31.05, as the smoke cleared after the explosion, John can be seen on his hands and knees, crawling along the City Room floor. Gemma is seen moving towards the exit. At 22.31.08, as John Atkinson crawls along the floor , he can be seen to be leaving a large trail of blood behind him. At 22.31.19, Gemma is seen to collapse on the floor, just around the corner from John and the stairs that lead down into the car park. (p. 7)

Jane Tweddle [22]

Jane and Joanne entered the City Room at 22.23.45. Joanne and Jane waited near the box office windows in the City Room for Isabella and Kimberley. They met them at 22.30.58. They then turned from the box office windows to walk to the Trinity Way exit. Jane was walking next to Joanne on her right and Isabella and Kim were walking next to Joanne on her left. Jane was approximately 14 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. CCTV shows that, following the explosion, Joanne assisted Jane across the City Room as they went towards the City Room exit leading to Trinity Way. Jane reached the exit and collapsed on the ground just before the steps. (p. 29)

The Inquiry published a CCTV image of Jane Tweddle one second before the official detonation time. Strangely, she and possibly Brewster [19] seem to be the only people shown in that image who were killed.

Source: Richplanet.net

In sum, the BBC diagram is more or less consistent with the evidence summaries and the publicly available CCTV footage. Callander and Lees are roughly in the right locations, just slightly too far away. Kiss’ position would have been correct based on the 22:28:14 CCTV image. The only inexplicable inconsistency is Roussos, but her position can easily be moved to correspond to her evidence summary.

Post-detonation CCTV Imagery of the City Room

We know from Dr Philip Lumb’s evidence given at the Inquiry that the bodies of the deceased were not removed from the City Room until the afternoon and/or evening of May 23, 2017 (see Part 13). (Roussos, Callander and Atkinson were evacuated from the City Room on the night of May 22).

Thanks to Hall’s diligence in putting together composite images of the City Room from two CCTV cameras, we can see the areas in which no bodies lay:

Source: Hall, Manchester on Camera (48:30)

Note in the above image that there are no bodies to the left of the left pillar.

Source: Hall, Manchester on Camera (48:30)

Note in the above image that most of the area in front of the steps to the mezzanine and towards the exit to the footbridge is clear.

There is also a single, blurred post-detonation CCTV image from a different CCTV camera near the box office, pointing towards the doors to the Arena concourse:

Source: Richplanet.net

The above image shows no bodies near the doors or where Smith, McGowan, and Wilcock are standing near the pillar.

Lining up the above image with an earlier image captured at 22:09:06 allows us to identify the limit of visibility towards the left. It is two sets of double doors from the left. The relevance of this will become clear later on when it comes to mapping CCTV redacted areas.

Finally, there was a CCTV camera tucked away down a side passageway leading off from the City Room where the steps and lift down to the Fifty Pence area were accessible. This, too, contained extensive redactions:

Source: Richplanet.net

Using the post-detonation CCTV imagery, as well as the 22:28:01 CCTV image of Howe and Lee to plot the bottom of that camera’s frame of view, we can build up an accurate picture of where the CCTV blind spots and redacted areas were in the City Room.

Overlaying that information on the diagram of named victims, and moving Callander, Lees, Kiss, and Roussos to positions compatible with their summaries of evidence, yields the following diagram:

The grey zones are CCTV blind spots plus redacted areas. The vanilla shows where was visible on CCTV post-detonation (I have not included blind spots for the CCTV camera looking towards the doors to the train station, as none of the 22 were located within its range). Black lines from the other two CCTV cameras show relevant lines of sight: one marking the edge of a redacted area, the other to the pillar near the box office to help with positioning of named victims.

What stands out immediately is that all 22 official fatalities are located in the grey zones. This means that, with the relevant adjustments for Callander, Lees, Kiss, and Roussos having been made, the BBC diagram, the distances from seat of blast, and the CCTV redactions are all consistent with one another. The only question mark is over the BBC’s positioning of Roussos.

Alleged Camera Phone Footage from a Member of the Public

In five of the evidence summaries for the deceased, there is mention of “a member of the public” who began filming in the City Room at 22:31:34.

In chronological order, the relevant excerpts are:

• “Bradley [Hurley] can be seen on an image captured within this footage at 22.31.34. This was approximately 30 seconds after detonation. Megan [Hurley] is not visible in this footage” (p. 6).

• “At 22.31.34, Georgina [Callander] can be seen on this mobile phone footage. Georgina is some distance away but her pink top is visible” (p. 8).

• “Marcin [Klis] and Angelika [Klis]can be seen in some of this footage, which shows that, at 22.31.34, Marcin was lying on his side and appeared to be motionless. Angelika was lying next to Marcin on her side and did not appear to be moving (pp. 105-106).

• “Kelly [Brewster] can be seen on an image captured in this footage at 22.31.50 (p. 5).

• “Sorrell [Leczkowski] can be seen on an image captured within this footage at 22.31.52 (p. 72).

In principle, those excerpts are compatible with the member of the public filming from the positions shown in purple below (or close by), which is further evidence of consistency in the official account.

Summary

Although the 1,346-page Inquiry report fails to include a diagram showing where the 22 were at the moment of detonation and/or where they fell, the diagram of named victims shown by the BBC in November 2022 proves consistent with:

• a common sense check

• the evidence summaries in the Inquiry report

• the redacted CCTV imagery, and

• the alleged camera phone footage taken by a member of the public at 22:31:34.

The only exception is Roussos, but her location can easily be amended to make it compatible with the available evidence.

Thus, in terms of where named victims fell, the information provided by the State appears to be coherent.

In Search of Empirical Confirmation: CCTV Imagery

Although the official account appears to be internally consistent, it needs to correspond to verifiable empirical evidence for it to be regarded as true.

For example, a carefully run drill, with everyone moving around and role-playing, would generate an abundance of internally consistent data, but it would no more prove the reality of a terrorist attack than did Exercise Winchester Accord (see Part 10).

Where, then, is the empirical evidence that confirms the placement of the 22 victims on the diagram above?

One form of evidence that we can look to is CCTV imagery. Below is a diagram showing areas visible on CCTV (in vanilla), plus blind spots (in grey), without taking Operation Manteline redactions into account:

Assuming the sense-checked and triangulated (BBC diagram, evidence summaries, CCTV redaction-compatible) victim positions to be reasonably accurate, 12 of the 22 should have been visible on CCTV immediately pre-detonation. They are Leczkowski [1], Fawell [2], Howe [17], Lees [18], Boyle [16], Tron [15], Campbell-Hardy [14], A. Klis [12], M. Klis [13], Brewster [19], Atkinson [21], and Tweddle [22].

Howe [17], Lees [18], Tweddle [22], and possibly Brewster [19] are visible in the 22:28:01 and 22:30:59 footage taken from CCTV cameras A and B, respectively. However, the other eight are not.

Intriguingly, whereas eight CCTV images from Camera C and three images from Camera B are available for the final minute before the official detonation time of 22:31:00, none are available from Camera A, the one camera which should include all 12 named victims above.

The last available image from Camera A is the 22:28:01 one showing Lees and Howe but none of the other 10:

Source: Richplanet.net

Critics will contend, reasonably enough, that, in a dynamic crowd scene, a lot can happen in a minute and 59 seconds. Indeed, CCTV imagery from Camera B shows a dramatic swelling in numbers leaving during that time.

The point is, however, why do we have images captured at 22:30:59 (one second before detonation) from Cameras B and C but not the all-important Camera A? A CCTV image from Camera A at 22:30:59 would have been a critical piece of evidence for the “public” inquiry to make public. But it did not do so.

Consequently, Leczkowski [1], Fawell [2], Tron [15], Boyle [16], Campbell-Hardy [14], A. Klis [12], M. Klis [13], and Atkinson [21] are all missing on CCTV at the critical moment. In fact, I am not aware of any of them appearing in any CCTV or other footage/imagery from the night, although I would welcome corrections on this. Needless to say, this is potentially the same problem that Hall faced with the Hibberts i.e., named victims not appearing in any publicly available imagery, including 806 CCTV images.

Much as it should have been straightforward for Martin Hibbert to produce the 20:03 CCTV image showing him and Eve entering the City Room, thereby instantly disqualifying Hall’s hypothesis that he and Eve were not at the concert, so, too, the positive burden of proof that that these eight individuals — all of whom should be clearly identifiable on CCTV at 22:30:59 — would be easily discharged by the State providing that image. But it has not done so, nor is there any reason to expect it to do so.

Could it have something to do with images of child victims being censored? I am not aware of any such policy having been specified by GMP or the Inquiry, yet, to my knowledge, none of the seven named child victims is visible on any of the publicly available CCTV images. If so, then perhaps Leczkowski [1], aged 14, and/or Campbell-Hardy [14], aged 15, entered the frame above soon after 22:28:01, and this was used as a pretext not to show any more pre-detonation images from that camera.

There is still no good reason to censor the adults, however, and the familiar black rectangles could easily have been applied to leave the adult victims visible.

Indeed, it proved surprisingly easy to make the necessary post-detonation redactions. Only one Camera B image is available post-detonation, with the left hand side redacted: this blanks out Leczkowski [1] and Fawell [2] (and Roussos [3], if she were in fact anywhere near her BBC positioning). The Hall composite image for Camera A (shown above) indicates that only five short strips of black were ultimately needed to blot out the other 10 named victims.

Thus, resembling a magician’s trick, six strips of black sufficed to eliminate from view all 22 named victims (10 of whom were already hidden).

The upshot is, we only have CCTV evidence of three (possibly four) of the 22 named victims — i.e., Howe [17], Lees [18], Tweddle [22], and possibly Brewster [19] — in position just before the official detonation time (and even that assumes that Howe and Lees barely moved for almost two minutes, unlike Andrea Bradbury and Barbara Whittaker standing to their left, who were officially by the merchandise stall at the moment of detonation [§17.30]).

Although there could be legitimate reasons for that lack of CCTV evidence, such as pre-exiting CCTV blind spots and child victims wondering into view, there is, de facto, extremely limited CCTV evidence corroborating named victims’ locations.

For 18 of the 22, we cannot say where they were immediately prior to detonation. The number could in theory be 21 out of 22 if Howe [17] and Lees [18] moved from their 22:28:01 position and I have misidentified Brewster [19]. Only Tweddle [22] is definitely captured a second prior to the official detonation time.

Not Enough Bodies: Camera Phone Evidence

Another form of primary empirical evidence that could help to confirm the BBC’s placement of victims — which I take to be as close as we will come to an official placement — is camera phone evidence.

Forced to deal with unpleasant subject matter, Davis argues in his video presentation that there are not enough bodies visible in the Barr footage to account for anywhere close to the 58 people whom we should expect to see.

This includes the 22 fatalities (none of whom had been evacuated at that point), plus an additional 36 people who were taken to the Casualty Clearing Station (CCS), the first of them arriving at 23:07. The total number arriving at the CCS was 38 (§10.170), but that includes two of the eventual fatalities, i.e., Callander and Atkinson.

A detailed examination of the evidence indicates that Davis is correct.

The immediate aftermath in the City Room is recorded in three publicly available pieces of camera phone evidence: (i) 15 seconds of blurred footage played in the BBC’s Manchester: The Night of the Bomb (37:31-37:46), (ii) the Barr footage, lasting 43 seconds, and (iii) the Parker photograph.

We know that all three pieces of evidence were captured before Inspector Michael Smith entered the City Room at 22:47:51, and before NWAS paramedic Patrick Ennis entered at 22:53:27, because there is no sign of GMP officers or NWAS staff in any of them. This means, in each case, that we are looking at within 16 minutes or so of detonation.

Importantly, the three pieces of evidence are mutually corroborating (insofar as they show some of the same actors and features), and one of them was shown by the BBC in its propaganda piece, meaning that the other two cannot idly be dismissed as “fake.”

I have plotted on the diagram below where I think each of the three camera phones was approximately located at the time the evidence was recorded.

The BBC and Barr positions are based on lines of sight (the black lines) to key markers in the room, such as the centre of the window and the “corner of the City Room” in the case of the Barr footage, or the pillar in front of the box office and a victim directly in front of it in the case of the BBC footage. Parker is positioned next to the two red streaks that the Inquiry transcripts tacitly invite us to believe are a blood trail from John Atkinson (p. 7), and closer to the other victims than Barr or the BBC, while not capturing the victim near the pillar.

Let us examine the evidence from each of the three camera phones in turn.

The BBC Footage

Below are five stills from the BBC’s Manchester: The Night of the Bomb (37:31-37:46), as the camera pans from left to right, with a brief dip down in the second still. Being as generous as possible, I count 29 blurred figures on the floor, but for the purposes of the argument it would not have mattered if it were 39:

Parenthetically in relation to the above image, who is the man appearing to lean casually against the wall on the left with his arms folded? And who is the casually dressed man, one hand in his jeans pockets, appearing to make a phone call?

29 victims is only half the total count needed.

Note from the diagram of smart phone locations above that the BBC footage covers all fatalities apart from Tweddle, Atkinson, and Kiss. Adding them takes the total count to 32.

The Barr Footage

We can see from the far less sinister Barr footage that three people are on the ground in front of the merchandise stall who are not captured in the BBC footage.

Source: Iain Davis, composite from the Barr footage

What Davis here labels 2 and 3 probably correspond to what I have labelled 19 and 20 in the BBC footage. If so, only one more victim is to be added, taking the total count to 33. An additional victim in the foreground (17) takes the count to 34. Otherwise, the entire floor space from the camera phone location to victims already accounted for is empty, and there are no signs of any victims to the left.

We can infer from Hall’s post-detonation composite image that most of the floor space to the left of the Barr footage did not contain any fatalities, so the total count remains at 34. There is no sign of blood on the floor from any evacuee.

Source: Hall, Manchester on Camera (48:30), with my annotations for Barr

To the right of the Barr footage are two areas (in vanilla) where post-detonation CCTV imagery shows no bodies:

Therefore, unless an additional 24 casualties were located in the grey CCTV blind spot areas above — which seems highly unlikely — then Davis is correct that there are not enough bodies on the ground to account for the 58 that we should expect to see.

The Parker Photograph

At most, there are 20 people lying on the floor in the Parker photograph.

However, the Parker photograph covers a narrower area than the BBC and Barr footage. At least ten fatalities shown on the camera phone diagram above are out of range of the Parker photograph, as are the four people lying near the merchandise stall and the person in the foreground of the Barr footage. Adding those people in takes the total count to 35, again far short of 58.

Other Anomalies Regarding the Parker Photograph

Of the three camera phone sources in the public domain, only the Parker photograph shows unblurred, close-up footage of certain individuals lying on the ground. Whom should we expect to see there?

If the above diagram is correct (and it is based on the BBC’s positioning of victims, which in turns gives its source as the Manchester Arena Inquiry), the group in front of Parker included Campbell-Hardy [14], Tron [15], Boyle [16], Howe [17], and Lees [18]. Behind them are Leczkowski [1] and Fawell [2]. The only male here is Tron [15].

Yet, not only do the positions of people on the floor in the Parker photograph not match the diagram, but a distinctive feature of the photograph is that only two females can be identified (no. 6 and the BTP officer in the centre). Given that most of the fatalities were officially young and female, it is remarkable that, with just two exceptions, the only people whose sex can be determined in the photograph are all men.

Note the distinctive object at the bottom of the Parker photograph. One second before the official detonation time, it was being held by the woman ringed below:

Immediately in front of the woman are three young females heading towards the exit, plus a fourth heading the other way. There is no sign of them in the foreground of the Parker photograph. Instead, there is a man in a green jumper lying on the floor, plus the start of what we are invited to believe are two blood trails coming from John Atkinson’s legs as he crawled out of view (he “attempted to drag himself across the floor of the City Room. He left an obvious trail of blood behind him” [§18.72]). Again, therefore, the Parker photograph does not support the official version of events.

Summary

In three separate pieces of camera phone evidence, all of which are looking at the same scene from different vantage points, we should expect to see 58 people on the ground, either fatally wounded or seriously injured and awaiting evacuation. Or at least 51, given that seven casualties were able to walk down, with assistance, to the Casualty Clearing Station.

Instead, we see a maximum of 35 people lying on the ground.

Although there are some blind spots that neither CCTV nor the camera phone footage captures, the chances of all missing victims being located in those blind spots are miniscule.

Therefore, the official version of events does not match the primary observable evidence.

Coupled with the CCTV evidence above, there is almost no primary evidence to corroborate the BBC’s placement of victims.

What Happened to Salman Abedi?

Officially speaking, there is one more body that needs to be located if we are to have a proper forensic understanding of what happened, namely, that of Salman Abedi.

Police and Media Reports in Relation to Salman Abedi’s Body

According to Detective Chief Inspector David Warren at the first inquest hearing for Abedi on June 16, 2017,

The force of the explosion severely disrupted Salman Abedi’s body and he died at the scene.

His body was recovered from the scene on May 23rd and transported to a mortuary outside Greater Manchester.

On the 24th May a post mortem was carried out by Dr Jonathan Medcalf, a Home Office pathologist. The cause of death was given as multiple injuries.

Abedi was identified by an identification commission which sat on the 2nd and 12th of June.

DCI Warren and Dr Medcalf are not mentioned in the Inquiry report, nor is there any mention there of what happened to Abedi’s body.

The Manchester Evening News gorily adds that

Abedi’s remains were taken from the Arena in a private ambulance with a police escort to Liverpool Royal Hospital on May 23, 2017. Four separate body bags were placed into the ambulance.

I am not aware of any evidence, official or otherwise, to corroborate that claim.

The Manchester Evening News further adds that a post-mortem dental autopsy was carried out by forensic odonatologist Dr John Rosie, which found a match with Abedi’s dental records. Rosie is another character who featured neither in the Inquiry nor in the Inquiry report.

In sum, the public has no way of knowing whether any of the above claims in relation to Abedi’s body are true.

Where Was Salman Abedi’s Body Discovered?

Recall that Inspector Michael Smith claimed over police radio communications to have discovered Salman Abedi’s body “outside Block 106” with a “complete explosion on his body. There’s plenty of bolts and nuts and things around where he was” (22:52).

We know this to be false for the reasons given in Part 11. Nevertheless, the police comms were evidently leaked to the New York Times, which within 36 hours had published a diagram placing Abedi’s severed torso through the doors to the Arena concourse (outside Block 106). Darron Coster evidently picked up on that misinformation when claiming to have seen the torso in that location in an interview on May 28, 2017 (see Part 11).

As a basic forensic matter, and to correct inaccurate press coverage, one might have expected the Inquiry report to clarify the precise location(s) of the suicide bomber’s remains.

In an exchange between Paul Greaney QC and DCS Barraclough at the Inquiry hearings, the following was said:

Q. At that very early stage, was the body of the suspected attacker identified near to the seat of the explosion?

A. Yes, it was.

Q. And therefore close to the arena box office?

A. Yes.

This is vague: near to the seat of the explosion, but not at it, somewhere close to the box office, and (reading between the lines) still in one piece.

Yet, that is as close as the public got, through the “Public” Inquiry, to finding out what became of Salman Abedi. There is nothing in the Inquiry report about the location of Abedi’s body, or whether it was severed by the force of the blast.

The official reason for this appears to be that “adducing, in public, detailed evidence about the circumstances of Salman Abedi's death” risks “glorifying his act of terrorism.”

So averse is Saunders to giving Salman Abedi and Hashem Abedi any kind of recognition that, excluding the appendices in Volume 3, he only uses their names once in the Inquiry report, at the start, thereafter referring to them in dehumanising terms as “SA” and “HA.”

Regardless of whether or not one agrees that pinpointing the location of Salman Abedi’s body risks glorifying terrorism, the bald fact is that we have yet another body that we cannot locate with any degree of confidence.

The Inquest Into Salman Abedi’s Death

Whereas the inquests into the deaths of the 22 were converted into a public inquiry for reasons of “national security” (see Part 13), the Inquiry failed to address the specific circumstances of Salman Abedi’s death, and Saunders instead held an inquest, in October 2023.

Manifesting a lack of transparency, the inquest was held in writing, without a jury or any public hearing or any witnesses being called — a possibility made available by the Judicial Review and Courts Act (2022), passed 16 months earlier, on June 28, 2022.

According to a spokesman for Saunders, no interested person objected to the documentary inquest format for three reasons:

1. the circumstances around Salman Abedi’s death had already been considered in detail during the Inquiry;

2. the risk of glorifying terrorism was to be avoided;

3. there was “no real prospect of disagreement about the inquest's likely determination and findings about the death of Salman Abedi.”

Yet, the circumstances around Salman Abedi’s death were not considered in detail. No attempt was made to follow up on Hall’s evidence relating to two eye witnesses who claimed to have seen Abedi set down his rucksack and run off, or the grey Audi that was illegally parked 250m from the Arena during the 19-minute interval where Abedi was not seen on CCTV or by eye witnesses in the City Room (see Part 6). There is no indication of what happened to Abedi’s body in the Inquiry report.

As for there being “no real prospect” of disagreement, here we find the very same legalese that would be deployed by Master Davison in the Summary Judgment against Hall just four months later (see Part 3). In reality, for anyone paying attention, there is every prospect of disagreement.

Saunders briefly recorded:

The deceased died at 22:31 on 22/05/2017 in the City Room of the Manchester Arena in the Victoria Exchange Complex in Manchester. The deceased died near to the entrance doors to the Manchester Arena, when he detonated an explosive device that he had made with his brother and carried into the City Room in a backpack as part of a planned terror attack. In detonating the device the deceased murdered 22 innocent victims and injured many others.

Of course, no other conclusion was possible, given that the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference assumed from the outset that 22 people lost their lives in “the attack by Salman Abedi,” and no evidence was heard to the contrary.

Conclusion

Despite the incredibly powerful emotional messaging that hit the public in May 2017, which involved the suffering and death of children, as well as many other innocents, it is important to be able to take a step back and look at what the primary empirical evidence actually tells us about what happened in the City Room on May 22, 2017. This is especially true, given the vile abuse of children for propaganda purposes that was taking place in the “War on Terror” at the time.

Particularly as we approach politically supercharged questions in relation to the named victims, it is important to remove emotion as far as possible and just stick to what the primary evidence is telling us.

One way of doing this is to consider where exactly the 22 named fatalities fell, without getting into the nature of their injuries. Suspiciously, the Inquiry report has remarkably little to say on this issue, which seems fundamental when determining the circumstances of death.

Nevertheless, the State broadcaster, the BBC, in November 2022 did offer up a diagram of named victims, supposedly based on the Inquiry, which proves broadly compatible with Operation Manteline’s placement of victims from seat of blast, as well as Operation Manteline’s CCTV redactions and evidence based on a member of the public allegedly filming at 22:31. The surprising coherence between those various sources suggests that either the official version of events is true, or else there was a rigorously thought out master narrative on the part of the State.

The best way the public has of checking the truth or falsity of the BBC diagram (adjusting the positions of Lees [18], Callander [4], Kiss [20], and Roussos [3]) is by its correspondence to primary empirical evidence.

Two main forms of primary empirical evidence are publicly available, namely, CCTV imagery and camera phone footage/imagery. In terms of CCTV imagery, a maximum of four (and a minimum of one) named victims can be seen in position, which is an insufficient evidence base. The three camera phones show nothing that matches with the official count of 58 seriously injured people (51 of whom had to be carried to the CCS) or the named victims whom we should expect to see from the BBC diagram.

Similarly in the case of Salman Abedi, there is nothing in the official evidence that provides definitive proof of what happened to him. Despite Inspector Smith’s demonstrably false claim in real time that Abedi’s body had been discovered “outside Block 106”; despite media coverage to that effect (mimicked by Darron Coster); and despite DCI Warren’s claim at the inquest on June 16, 2017, that Abedi’s body had been “severely disrupted,” there is no hard evidence that he blew himself up. Saunders systematically avoided the issue in the name of not glorifying terrorism, yet still reached the only allowable conclusion according to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference, namely, that Abedi was to blame. Hall’s evidence that Abedi was an operative who made a getaway has never been, and will never be, acknowledged by the State.

Therefore, our quest to locate where the 22 were at the moment of detonation, or where they fell, plus what happened to Salman Abedi, ends in failure. Although the State’s apparent master narrative is internally consistent, there is almost no empirical evidence to support it.