The Law vs. the Truth: What Happened in Manchester?
Part 15 - Injuries
Part 15 - Injuries
Foreword: Something To Hide?
Before beginning this Part, it should be recorded that on February 24, 2025, the Manchester Arena Inquiry closed its YouTube channel, thus removing access to all 1,300+ hours of evidence given.
This follows the various attempts at hiding evidence discussed in Part 6.
With public attention coming more and more on the Manchester Arena incident following the dubious Judgment against Richard D. Hall in October 2024, the timing seems suspicious, to say the least.
For example, in this series, particularly during 2025, I have included many links to the Inquiry YouTube channel, typically to the precise spot in a three- or four-hour video, so that readers can check the evidence for themselves. All of those links are now defunct.
It would appear that those responsible for the removal of the Inquiry YouTube channel do not want the public to be able to examine witness evidence for themselves. Do they have something to hide?
The Inquiry hearings can, for the time being at least, still be found at https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/video/UCdWYYDnEbLUOyFsCaVhqlxw.
I encourage readers to download and reupload those videos before they are permanently memory-holed.
Introduction
We saw in Part 14 that the State provided an internally consistent account of where the 22 official fatalities fell, which, however, does not comport with the primary observable evidence.
The same holds true of injuries, i.e., the official narrative is tight-knitted, coherent, and compelling on its own terms, yet poorly supported by primary empirical evidence.
In what follows, I consider the official claims made about injuries. On the one hand, those claims are intentionally minimal. Yet, there are two cases in particular where more detail is provided, and in the case of eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, it is almost impossible to imagine that anyone would lie about her injuries, let alone multiple unrelated eyewitnesses inside and outside the City Room.
On the other hand, there is very little, if any, primary empirical evidence in the public domain to support official claims about injuries. For example, Saunders claims to have witnessed appalling injuries on body-worn camera footage, yet no such footage has been made publicly available, and the only footage that has, i.e. the Barr footage, shows nothing of the kind.
Thanks to the Blast Wave Panel of Experts assembled by Saunders, we do know about the kinds of injuries that should have been incurred in the City Room as a result of a TATP shrapnel bomb going off. The evidence is clearly inconsistent with the gruesome effects described by the panel. Not enough people were killed and maimed, and some people who should have been seriously injured demonstrably were not.
In terms of numbers, there appears to be a discrepancy between the number of casualties and fatalities observed by eyewitnesses in the first half hour post-detonation and the official number that was later reported. While the official fatality rate was quickly announced at 22, and strangely remained there without anyone else perishing from bomb blast injuries in the subsequent days or weeks, the reported casualty rate climbed and climbed for reasons that will become clear. Most injury claims related to psychological, rather than physical, trauma, and many of the additional physical injuries, to the extent they were genuine, would have been caused by the stampede to leave the Arena and not by a bomb blast.
Public perception of the injuries was largely conditioned by the legacy media, which we know to have lied about building damage, among other things. Many of the claims made about injuries in the legacy media are implausible. I consider the treatment of injuries in the two major television programmes that were made about the Manchester Arena incident, namely, the BBC’s Manchester: The Night of the Bomb and ITV’s Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack.
This article contains content that some readers may find distressing, in particular the official account regarding fatal injuries to a young child. Readers are, therefore, advised to exercise their discretion before proceeding.
Official Claims About Injuries
As we saw in Part 13, the Inquiry had a deliberate policy of avoiding any concrete discussion of injuries and fatalities where possible. Paul Greaney QC set out the Inquiry’s policy as follows:
Distressing details should not be adduced unless vital to do so. Personal details must be avoided if possible, and evidence of injuries should be introduced only in circumstances in which the inquiry considers it relevant and necessary to do so and the witness consents, and some do and some do not. (p. 23)
As a result, the 1,346-page Inquiry report has remarkably little to say about injuries, despite ostensibly dealing with a mass casualty incident.
Furthermore, Saunders was very clear that his focus was only on those who died and not other people who happened to have been injured:
At no stage have I lost sight of the fact that many people were badly affected by the Attack. However, the terms of reference require me to focus upon those who died in the Attack. (§14.634)
“Survivors” were not awarded Core Participant status, and they play only a small role in the Inquiry report (pp. 4-26).
In terms of the 22 named fatalities, the evidence summaries prepared by GMP, which can be accessed via the links provided in Part 14, follow a formula of stating when the named victim entered the City Room, sometimes a line on their movements within the City Room, how many metres away from the seat of blast they were, and (in most cases) that they were seen lying motionless on the ground afterwards. Injuries are delicately omitted. Sometimes there are comments such as “Paul [Price] did not see any injuries on Elaine [McIver], but he had a feeling that she had passed away” (p. 46).
Correspondingly, the evidence summaries in Part 18 of the Inquiry report are remarkably brief and say very little about the nature of the injuries sustained. Examples include “a significant head injury” (§18.22), “chest injuries” (§18.53), “neck injuries” (§18.69), “head and abdominal injuries” (§18.84), and “head injury” (§18.108). The most common category, used 11 times, is “multiple injuries.” In each case, the injury/injuries were “sustained as a result of the explosion.”
Saunders officially instructed a “Blast Wave Panel of Experts” to review CT scans, medical imaging, and (in some cases) CCTV and body-worn camera footage to determine whether the injuries sustained by any of the 22 were “survivable” given a better emergency response. In the case of John Atkinson, it was found that they were.
The Blast Wave Panel was made up of Professor Anthony Bull, Colonel Professor Peter Mahoney, Colonel Professor Jonathan Clasper, Lieutenant Colonel Ballard and Alan Hepper, all from either Imperial College, London, or the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.
Because the post-mortem reports are not publicly available (as they would be for inquests), the public is expected to take Saunders’ word for it that all the information in the Inquiry report is true (see Part 13). It is very difficult for the public to verify any of the claims regarding injuries independently.
Additional injury detail is given in the Inquiry report in relation to John Atkinson and Saffie-Rose Roussos, for whom survivability was not straightforward to ascertain (§18.15, §18.154-18.234). The post-mortem evidence in their cases was further reviewed by Professor Jack Crane (former State pathologist for Northern Ireland) and Home Office pathologist Dr Philip Lumb (§18.12).
Atkinson officially sustained
very severe leg injuries as the result of penetration by multiple metal objects. These had shredded the musculature, damaged deep leg blood vessels and severely fractured the bones of the leg, particularly on the right side. While [he] suffered injuries to other parts of his body from penetrating objects, those injuries [did] not contributed to his death. (§18.156)
Atkinson’s case was additionally reviewed by Surgeon Commander Dr Paul Rees, a cardiology expert.
In the case of Roussos, the post-mortem examiner, Home Office pathologist Dr. Philip Lumb
identified 69 external injuries in addition to internal injuries. The internal injuries involved extensive damage to the musculoskeletal and vascular systems […], injuries to her lungs and liver, and internal bleeding. (§18.192)
Roussos’ injuries were additionally reviewed by consultant radiologists Lieutenant Colonel Ballard and Dr Richard Wellings, as well as Dr Gareth Davies (a consultant in emergency medicine and pre-hospital care) and Mr Aswinkumar Vasireddy (a pre-hospital care consultant) (§18.196).
We can take away several key points from the above information:
The number of people injured in the City Room on May 22, 2017, whose injuries are given more than a cursory mention in the Inquiry report, is very low. In terms of fatalities, it is only two (Atkinson and Roussos). Some “survivor” injuries also get a brief mention (see Part 17).
The Blast Wave Panel of Experts’ primary role appears to have been to demonstrate independent corroboration of the post-mortem reports as it assessed “survivability.” However, the public has not seen those reports, and has no idea what images were handed to the panel or where they came from.
In terms of Atkinson and Roussos, the severity of the injuries appears to be confirmed by a number of additional highly-experienced professionals. However, we again do not know what evidence was provided by the State (Home Office pathologists, GMP) for those professionals to assess.
It is noticeable how many agents of the State were involved in safeguarding the evidence relating to injuries — not just the Home Office pathologists who officially conducted the post-mortems, the GMP officers who allegedly provided CCTV and body-worn camera footage, and the Inquiry legal team, but also the former State pathologist for Northern Ireland and a raft of military figures.
In sum, the State evidently went to great lengths to minimise publicly available injury detail, and to place gatekeepers in charge of the limited injury detail that has officially been made available, so that the public has no way of verifying it. The military involvement adds to the impression of an operation (cf. Part 10).
The Case of Saffie-Rose Roussos
Although only two cases of extended injury detail are provided in the Inquiry report, it should be noted how horrendous those two cases are, and how much evidence was heard with respect to them during the Inquiry: five full days in the case of Roussos and three full days in the case of Atkinson, compared to multiple victims per day in most other cases.
The first few hours of evidence given in relation to Roussos are practically unbearable to listen to. For example, when Roussos was put in the ambulance, according to Emergency Medical Technician Gemma Littler,
She had multiple injuries, open fractured left tibia and fibula, fractured right femur, broken hips, numerous puncture wounds all over both her legs and a couple on her arms. She was still conscious and breathing and kept trying to pull her oxygen mask off. (p. 87)
Dr Rachel Jenner wrote in an October 2018 witness statement that when Roussos arrived at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH) at 23:20,
It was clear from looking at her she had suffered terrible injuries, particularly to the lower part of her body. On our initial assessment, she was making only weak, gasping breaths which then stopped. She was pale and had no pulse. (p. 96)
As paraphrased at the Inquiry, Jenner’s statement went on to detail that
paediatric cardiac arrest resuscitation attempts were commenced according to advanced paediatric life support protocols. These included chest compressions and intubating Saffie. Intraosseous needles were inserted into both her left and right humerus, bones of the upper arm, through which emergency blood transfusions and adrenaline was given. (pp. 96-97)
Dr Omar Wasim Hashmi, in a May 2020 witness statement, claimed:
She had numerous shrapnel injuries, mostly to her torso and limbs. (pp. 99-100)
It is hard to imagine anyone fabricating such injuries to an eight-year-old child, although the use of child propaganda in the “War on Terror” was discussed in Part 14, and we know that the intelligence agencies are more than capable of Big Lies (Hughes, 2024, Chapter 6).
Consider, too, the number of people who would have to be involved in such a Big Lie, if it were one. Not only are there all the people who gave evidence of having assisted Roussos in the City Room, but there are also the ambulance paramedics, and the doctors who treated Roussos at RMCH (see Part 18). Is it really possible that they could all have been lying, or at least willing to co-sign a lie?
All the evidence from the staff at RMCH in relation to Roussos appears to have come in the form of statements given to Operation Manteline (see Part 12), rather than sworn statements in front of the Inquiry. However, the same is not true of paramedic Gillian Yates or those who are said to have assisted Roussos in the City Room, such as off-duty nurse, Bethany Crook.
Source: BBC
Source: BBC
Perhaps I am revealing my own cognitive limitations, but I struggle to see how so many people, including medical professionals far away from the City Room, could all have participated in a Big Lie regarding Roussos’ fatal injuries.
At the same, however, there is no primary empirical evidence supporting the detonation of a TATP shrapnel bomb, and the public does not have access to any primary evidence that would corroborate Roussos’ injuries, such as CCTV and camera phone footage, hospital records, and the post-mortem report.
This leaves us in a very difficult, and very delicate, situation. For, on the one hand, who would doubt the accumulated, mutually corroborating testimonies of the dozens of individuals who claim to have cared for Roussos on the night? Yet, on the other hand, what corroborating primary evidence does the public have that any of it is true?
The resultant uncertainty aids the appeal to emotion on which so much of the propaganda around the Manchester Arena incident is based. For if it cannot be proven that those testimonies are false, public outrage and indignation are easily weaponised against those asking for positive proof of their veracity.
Body-Worn Camera Footage of Injuries
In his statement upon delivery of Volume 2 of the Inquiry report, Saunders claimed:
In the course of the evidence of what happened after the explosion I saw CCTV evidence and video from body-worn cameras of the City Room. That showed clearly the appalling aftermath of the explosion. It showed those who had died within seconds of the explosion it showed victims with appalling injuries. I have considered post mortem evidence and expert evidence which confirmed that those who died did so as a result of injuries caused by a bomb exploding. There can be no question on the evidence that those who died, died as a result of the actions of Salman Abedi which caused the severe injuries suffered by many people who attended the concert or were waiting to collect children who had attended
Yet, the public has not seen a single injury on CCTV. It has not seen any footage from body-worn cameras. It has not seen any post-mortem reports.
The public has seen the Barr footage and the Parker photograph, which the Inquiry deliberately ignored, but which do not show a scene of carnage compatible with the detonation of a TATP shrapnel bomb in a room full of hundreds of people.
The Barr footage. Source: Iain Davis.
Pace Saunders, therefore, there most certainly can be evidence-based questions around what took place in the City Room on May 22, 2017. One of them is whether Saunders was telling the truth.
According to Sophie Cartwright QC, there were “52 body−worn videos” (p. 95), whose footage, according to Saunders,
formed a vital part of reconstructing what happened in the City Room in particular. The content was often too distressing to play publicly. I have viewed a good deal of it. It enabled me to understand better how terrible an environment the City Room was in the period immediately after the Attack. The body-worn video recordings have been the subject of very detailed analysis. (§19.27)
Yet, the Barr footage and the Parker photograph are not too distressing for public view. In fact, the New York Times published the Parker photograph 36 hours after the incident. So, there is reason to take Saunders’ claims with a pinch of salt.
The Parker photograph. Source: New York Times
From the “52 body-worn videos,” it is unclear how many cameras were involved. Does this mean 52 separate cameras, or 52 videos taken by fewer cameras? With few exceptions, the Inquiry report does not specify who was wearing a body-worn camera, or how many there were.
In the Inquiry report and transcripts, notwithstanding the occasional mention of PC Leon McLaughlin’s body-worn camera (§18.216; p. 48), the general idea of police officers’ body-worn cameras is used to claim that certain conversations were overheard, for example:
Some of what Mr [Thomas] Owen [member of the public] said to and about Georgina [Callander] has been captured from the body−worn video recordings. At 23.03.05, Mr Owen said, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me, yeah?” (p. 9).
Or, no less dramatically:
Samantha [Leczkowski] asked if [her daughter] Sorrell was dead and Ms [Marianne] Gibson [ETUK] said, “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” before she moved away. (p. 76)
The notable exception to these unspecified sources of filming is Philip Clegg (Travel Safe) who entered the City Room just before 22:33 with his body-worn camera (p. 46). There are numerous mentions in the transcripts of Clegg filming, particularly in relation to the named fatalities. For example, Clegg is said to have filmed Elaine McIver (p. 46), Martyn Hett (p. 9), Megan Hurley (p. 6), Eilidh MacLeod (p. 65), Lisa Lees (p. 6), Nell Jones (p. 26), Philip Tron (pp. 8-9), Olivia Campbell-Hardy (p. 17), Marcin and Angelika Klis (p. 106), Chloe Rutherford (and presumably, therefore, Liam Curry, p. 99), John Atkinson (p. 10), and Saffie-Rose Roussos (p. 14).
The overall impression created is that Clegg’s body-worn camera was invoked to “prove” that named fatalities were seen close up, while the general idea of body-worn cameras was used as the pretext for including snippets of conversation in the evidence summaries.
It all seems artificial and contrived. For example, it would seem more believable if different named fatalities were captured on body-worn camera footage from multiple named officers, rather than predominantly Clegg (plus the member of the public filming at 22:31:34, see Part 14), and if the unnecessary dramatic inserts had been left out.
Blast Injuries
Officially, the “appalling injuries” that Saunders claims to have seen on body-worn camera footage were caused by Salman Abedi detonating a TATP shrapnel bomb in the middle of the City Room at 22:31:00 on May 22, 2017.
To investigate the effects of such a bomb, Saunders assembled a Blast Wave Panel of Experts, led by Professor Anthony Bull from the Centre for Blast Injury Studies, a research centre within Imperial College, London.
Based on evidence given by that panel, the effects of a blast wave caused by an explosion are summarised on p. 2 of Volume 2.2 of the Inquiry report. They can be spelled out in more detail, as follows.
The two component parts of a blast wave are (i) the shock wave, “a high-pressure wave of energy, which transmits through material,” and (ii) the blast wind, which follows the shock wave and carries material with it, both from the device itself and from the environment (§17.5).
Blast injuries fall into five categories, the first three of which are relevant in the case of a TATP shrapnel bomb.
Primary blast injuries result from the shock wave transmitting through the structures of the body. Bull described this at the Inquiry as follows:
[W]here the tissues have a margin between them, so let’s say between muscle and bone, or let’s say between air and the tissues of the lung, then, […] there is disruption at the interface, the pressure wave goes through and then where you have an interface, there is shearing, a separation of the materials at that interface. […] If the person is close to the seat of the explosion, then that pressure wave is transmitted through the person and at the interfaces there is disruption and shearing of the tissues. (p. 24)
To be explicit, a person close to the seat of an explosion will have muscle tissue sheared from bone by the shock wave.
Secondary blast injuries are caused by objects carried by the blast wind. The Inquiry report describes such injuries as follows:
When they make contact with the body, they can disrupt the anatomy. Being struck by a fragment from a blast has been likened to being shot with a bullet. However, the fragment typically causes more devastation as the energy around the object does not travel in a straight line, rather it is tumbling. This means a small wound from a secondary blast injury can cause devastating internal injuries. (§17.8)
This means that the 3,000 nuts, screws, and cross-dowels that were officially contained in Abedi’s improvised explosive device would have contained rotational tumbling energy, which, according to Bull, “causes more significant tearing of the anatomy that it comes into contact with” (p. 26).
Tertiary blast injuries are caused by the body being thrown against a wall or the floor by the force of the blast wind, typically taking the form of crush injuries. The energy involved is “often far higher than in a road traffic collision” and can result in “very severe injury” (§17.9).
Quaternary blast injuries are, in Bull’s words, “caused by heat and clearly when you have an explosion, heat is given off, and so burns and inhalation injuries can occur” (p. 31).
Quinary blast injuries are caused by other means, e.g. biological or radiological contaminants in the explosion (§17.11).
The Inquiry report illustrates the five types of blast injuries as follows:
Source: Inquiry Report, Volume 2.1
Colonel Peter Mahoney, who appeared alongside Bull on the Blast Wave Panel of Experts, was keen to stress “just how severe injuries from explosions are and can be”:
Certainly when I was actively doing pre−hospital care, I’d regularly attend road accidents and regularly attend industrial accidents. You can have a very unpleasant and very mutilating road accident, and I’m not in any way dismissing that, but the sheer ferocity of an explosion and the complexity of the injuries that you can get from an explosion are almost in a different league of their own. A league of their own. (p. 70)
Based on the first three types of blast injury, it is hard to understand how anyone located in the vicinity of a TATP shrapnel bomb could survive, given the impact of the shock wave, the shrapnel, and the blast wind, whose effects would be worse than a road traffic accident.
Why Did Abedi’s TATP Shrapnel Bomb Not Kill and Maim More People?
As we know, there were 22 official fatalities. But why were there not many more, given the primary, secondary, and tertiary blast injuries that would have been caused by a TATP shrapnel bomb going off in the middle of a crowded City Room?
The City Room, one second before the official detonation time. Source: Richplanet.net, with my ringed annotations
The City Room, one second before the official detonation time. Source: Richplanet.net
The BBC claimed in November 2017 that “A total of 353 people, including 175 children, were near the bomber when he detonated his device in the foyer of the concert venue.” Therefore, why were only 22 killed, and why were only 38 evacuated to the Casualty Clearing Station?
In the first of the 22:30:59 images above, I have ringed Jane Tweddle (white), Joanne and Isabella Aaron and Kim McKeown (red), Claire Booth (yellow), and who I suspect to be Kelly Brewster (blue) and Hollie Booth (green).
Tweddle and Brewster were named among the fatalities. Claire and Hollie Booth were taken to the Casualty Clearing Station. Joanne Aaron showed no sign of injury (pp. 26-35), and there is no mention in the transcripts of what became of Isabella Aaron or Kim Mckeown:
They then turned from the box office windows to walk to the Trinity Way exit. Jane [Tweddle] was walking next to Joanne on her right and Isabella [Aaron] and Kim [Mckeown, Isabella’s friend] were walking next to Joanne on her left. Jane was approximately 14 metres away from the bomber at the time of detonation. (p. 29)
This description does not marry up with the CCTV image above, possibly because the detonation may have occurred 30 seconds later (see Part 12). But, more importantly, why would only Tweddle (and possibly Brewster, if I have identified her correctly) be unlawfully killed, out of this very large number of people?
There are many more people visible who were closer to the alleged detonation site than Tweddle, who was officially 17 metres away. They would have experienced the shock and blast waves, plus shrapnel, even more intensely. Yet, for some reason, virtually everyone in shot has simply disappeared by the time the Barr footage and Parker photograph were taken some 12-15 minutes later.
Those Who Should Have Been Seriously Injured But Were Not
Keeping in mind the nature of blast injuries caused by a bomb going off, as graphically described by the Blast Injuries Panel of Experts at the Inquiry, it is reasonable to ask why certain individuals were not seriously injured or killed outright, given their proximity to the blast.
For example, Darah Burke, a medical doctor, told the Inquiry that he and his wife and daughter were “halfway across” the City Room (p. 56), which would place them close to the seat of detonation (the Mirror claims 5 metres away). He recalls being “kind of thrown forward slightly. I wasn’t pushed to the floor, but I kind of went into a crouching position” (p. 55). This is not consistent with the shock wave or blast wave injuries from a bomb described above. Burke claimed to have had a shrapnel injury to his left buttock plus “a small nick in the femur” (pp. 60-61). And that was the full extent of his injuries.
Andrea Bradbury and Barbara Whittaker were officially standing “near to the merchandise stall” (§17.30), which was approximately eight metres away from the seat of blast, at the moment of detonation. Bradbury claims to have been “knocked to the ground, face down” (p. 125). She said it felt like her legs had been hit by a garden strimmer (§17.30) and that she “crawled to the Arena bowl” to find their two daughters (§17.31, my emphasis). Nevertheless, she and Whittaker were reportedly well enough to walk for 40 minutes until they located their daughters, and Bradbury then took a taxi to GMP HQ, 2.6 miles away (p. 143), before going to hospital (§17.33-17.34). Whittaker apparently received first aid at the nearby Printworks, but there is no mention of her requiring hospital treatment.
Suzanne Atkins was “standing against railings by the merchandise stall” at the moment of detonation (§17.64). According to the Inquiry report, “It felt like something had rolled into her that was burning her legs. The impact sent her backwards” (§17.66). She “hit the ground” (p. 38). Nevertheless, she was immediately able to drag her mother up (p. 38) and take her out to the raised walkway and then went to find her daughter (§17.66).
There were at least seven Showsec employees in the City Room at the moment of detonation. By the Arena doors (10-12 metres away) were Dave Middleton, Jordan Beak, and Daniel Perry, plus three staff members in yellow, while Mohammad Agha was standing in front of the Grey Doors (ca. 20 metres away).
Hall’s annotated close-up of the 22:30:59 CCTV image. Source: Manchester on Camera.
Although the Inquiry report states “There were members of Showsec staff in the City Room who were injured by the explosion” (p. 681), all we are told is that Middleton had to be helped up off the ground by Perry and that Beak was momentarily blinded (§16.135-16.137). This officially did not prevent them from almost immediately directing the crowd away from the City Room, however. Megan Balmer was “forced […] through the doors” into the Arena concourse, yet was immediately able to run in the direction of Hunts Bank (§16.140). None of the Showsec staff appears to have been seriously injured.
Sarah Nellist claimed to have been standing next to the box office window closest to the Arena doors (ca. 15 metres away) when she was “struck and knocked to the ground by the effect of the detonation,” which on Professor Bull’s schema would correspond to tertiary blast injuries. Yet, she was quickly back on her feet and “ran on to the concourse desperately trying to search for my daughter” (p. 40). Without receiving any treatment, she was well enough to drive 90 minutes back to her home area (p. 43). The nature of her injuries remains a mystery because she did not wish to disclose that information at the Inquiry (p. 40).
Ronald Blake claims to have been “four car lengths” from the seat of the blast (§16.168). If the average length of a car in the UK is 4.4 metres, this would place Blake approximately 17-18 metres away from the seat of blast. Blake apparently “found himself lying on the floor,” but told the Inquiry that he was only “slightly” injured (p. 61). Next to him, his wife, Lesley, was uninjured (§16.168). He got up and went to help John Atkinson and others (§16.169-16.170).
John Barr, who recorded the Barr footage, told Richard D. Hall that was sitting on the steps in the City Room (16-20 metres away) at the time of detonation. When Hall asked “Were you hurt at all?,” Barr replied: “No […] we we still can’t understand why we weren’t hit.” In contrast, “a chap next to us […] was hit just under the chest the heart side and his ankle” and was “bleeding quite profusely” (Hall, 2020, p. 321). Why, then, were some people on the steps injured (or killed, in the case of Michelle Kiss), while others did not feel a thing?
Jonathan Woods was waiting on the mezzanine when
He felt the shock wave. He was struck in the knee, and his leg buckled. He believes that he was lifted off the ground and deposited in front of the JD Williams entrance. Despite this, he did what he could to assist those affected by the explosion. He tried to help Michelle Kiss. (§16.166)
In sum, the above accounts are incompatible with the effects of a bomb as outlined by the Blast Injuries Panel at the Inquiry. None of those involved seems to have experienced genuine shock or blast wave injuries, and the ones who were allegedly knocked down simply got back up and carried on. It is reasonable to infer from these accounts that there was no TATP bomb.
How Many Were Injured in the City Room?
Prime Minister Theresa May announced on May 23, 2017, that “in addition to the attacker, 22 people have died and 59 people have been injured,” a total of 81.
The 59 matches the total number of casualties transported to hospital recorded by Ambulance Loading Officer Matt Calderbank on the night, and includes P3 casualties (the “walking wounded”) who were sent across the road from the Casualty Clearing Station, which was taking P1 and P2 casualties.
In chronological order, the earliest eye witness reports from the City Room which estimated the numbers of casualties were as follows:
At 22:31:52, Ronald Blake called the emergency services, stating that there were “loads injured,” later clarified as 30 or 40 (p. 9);
Andrea Bradbury, in the immediate aftermath, “estimated the 30 people on the floor around me weren’t moving” (p. 130);
At 22:34, PC Jessica Bullough, the first BTP officer on the scene, broadcast from inside the City Room: “It’s definitely a bomb, people injured, at least twenty casualties” (§13.10).
At 22:48:39, 48 seconds after he had entered the City Room, Inspector Michael Smith told GMP Control “It looks to me like a bomb’s gone off here. I would say there’s about 30 casualties” (§13.401).
At 22:50, PC Lewis Adams estimated “about 10 fatalities and probably 50-60 wounded” (§13.328).
At 22:53:27, Patrick Ennis entered the City Room (§10.128), and one minute later, he sent a METHANE message stating that there were “at least 40 casualties and 10 deceased, [with] at least a dozen casualties in the P1 priority level of most seriously injured” (§10.121).
HART paramedic Lea Vaughan, who arrived in the City Room at 23:15 (§10.184) told ITV that she was “faced with twenty-six patients to deal with,” presumably excluding fatalities.
So, the early casualty estimates were: 30-40, 30, 20+, 30, 60-70 (including 10 fatalities), 50 (including 10 fatalities), and 26 (plus fatalities).
Roussos was evacuated at 22:57 (§18.132), and another nine casualties arrived at the Casualty Clearing Station between 23:07 and 23:13. Adding them to Vaughan’s estimate of 26 gets us to the mid-thirties in terms of the total number of casualties.
In Part 14, I counted a maximum of 35 people lying on the floor in the Barr footage, the BBC footage, and the Parker photograph, noting that 58 people, officially, were unlawfully killed and/or evacuated to the Casualty Clearing Station.
The early casualty estimates were, therefore, on the low side. Why? Were as many people seriously injured as we were told? This is a theme to which I will return in Part 18.
Subsequent Exaggerations of Casualty Numbers
As early as May 28, 2017, the Mirror was claiming “119 injured in the terror attack.”
On June 4, 2017, the One Love Manchester benefit concert was held to raise money for those adversely impacted by the Manchester Arena incident, with the proceeds going to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. An estimated £7.3 million was raised from the concert, climbing to £21.6 million by April 2019, thus financially incentivising claimed victimhood.
Accordingly, the reported number of casualties went on to exceed by far the 59 that were announced by Prime Minister May, and the legacy media was only too keen to report the exaggerated figures.
According to the Guardian, for instance, DS Jonathan Chadwick, giving evidence at the first inquest on June 9, 2017, “said 220 people received medical treatment as a result of the bomb.”
Sky News claimed on June 16, 2017, that “Abedi killed 22 people and injured more than 200 others […].”
According to the BBC on November 7, 2017, “Twenty-two people were killed and 512 injured when Salman Abedi detonated a bomb packed with nuts and bolts after an Ariana Grande concert at the Arena.”
On May 24, 2019, GMP Detective Sergeant Paul Costello, who was stationed at CTP North West, provided a witness statement in which he claimed that “the total number of victims, not including the 22 who lost their lives, numbered 940” (p. 58). These now also included those affected by trauma. According to Costello, 337 victims were in the City Room and a further 92 were in the “immediate vicinity” (p. 59), although it is hard to see how anyone outside the City Room could have been injured by the alleged bomb. Of those 429 alleged victims, 237 (a long way short of 940) were physically injured, of which 28 were very seriously injured, 63 were seriously injured, and 111 required hospitalisation (p. 59). Given that 59 casualties were taken from the CCS to hospital by ambulance on the night, plus Saffie-Rose Roussos (not from the CCS) and occasional cases such as Lili Harrison and Yvonne Clayton (p. 55), who were taken to hospital in police vehicles, it is hard to see where Costello’s numbers come from.
In April 2020, the Guardian claimed “In total, 93 people were either seriously or very seriously injured in the suicide bombing in May 2017, along with the 22 fatalities.”
The Telegraph, in May 2020, claimed “As well as those killed, 28 people were very seriously injured, 111 others were hospitalised and 670 have reported psychological trauma.” Note that psychological injury has been added here, significantly inflating the figures.
According to Hudgell Solicitors, “22 people lost their lives and more than 700 were injured.”
Counsel to the Inquiry, Paul Greaney QC, claimed that “hundreds of people suffered injury in the attack, whether physical or psychological or both, but survived” (p. 25).
DCS Simon Barraclough, who headed Operation Manteline, told the Inquiry that 1,017 people had been “injured in the actual bombing” (54:55).
The Inquiry itself, which cost the British taxpayer at least £31.6 million, “gifted money” to certain participants, ostensibly to pay for private health care. Gifting money creates conflicts of interest.
Injuries from the Stampede
The above exaggerations are designed to make the direct effects of the alleged bomb (“as a result of the bomb,” “in the suicide bombing,” “in the attack,” “in the actual bombing”) seem far worse than they were.
To the extent that large numbers of injuries were sustained, the 670 reported psychological injuries make up the lion’s share.
If, as Theresa May announced, 59 people were physically injured (and taken to hospital) in addition to the 22 fatalities — a total of 81 victims — then any estimates above that number were not the direct result of a bomb blast and must, rather, have had other causes.
It is clear that people were injured in the stampede as the panicked crowd sought to flee the venue.
A sense of the panic that followed the bang can be gleaned from videos here, here and here, as well as the 12-minute mark here.
Lauren Thorpe told the Inquiry:
We ran down the stairs [from the City Room to the Fifty Pence area]. There were other people at the bottom of the stairs. Adam [her partner] stood on one of them in the rush and twisted his left ankle and fell. He dropped our daughter [Lili Harrison] and I fell over him too. (p. 49)
PC Stephen Corke (BTP), who came up those stairs soon afterwards, recalled that there was “total panic” (18:00).
Robina Jones (ETUK) was stationed in a first aid capacity at the Hunt’s Bank exit. In her witness statement, she recalls:
The crowd were rushing out and parents were running in against the flow to try and find their children. I was shouting at people to slow down as there was a stampede and I was concerned that people were going to fall down the stairs. (p. 2)
Andrew Roussos, the father of Saffie-Rose Roussos, parked in Cathedral Gardens. He recalls
hearing screams and seeing hysterical children running away. He tried to stop people to find out what had happened. Three women told him that either a bomb had exploded or a balloon had popped causing everyone to panic. (§17.112)
The Kerslake Report contains two more anonymous eyewitness reports of the panic and the stampede:
We were on our way out of the Arena when the explosion went off, leaving through the exit with all the steps, everyone rushed to leave and there was a lot of panic around. Me and my friends were scared running down the stairs as there were so many people. This was understandable and so was the pushing and shoving to leave the Arena as quickly as possible (§2.9)
The sheer stampede after the explosion was scary because everyone was just running to the exit and no one really knew what had actually happened. (§2.9)
Jordan Kenney, who was inside the auditorium at the moment of detonation, recalled:
People were running, people were falling over and getting stamped on. We saw blood […].
The key point is that people were evidently injured as a result of the stampede, and with 14,000 people rushing to get out at once, it is to be expected that a significant number of them would have sustained injuries, certainly enough to account for the newspaper images of injured people outside the Arena afterwards.
Those people were not the victims of a bomb blast, however.
Injuries and the Legacy Media
The Power of the Media to Condition Public Opinion
The President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Dame Victoria Sharp, noted in a 2020 legal ruling:
This is not the place to describe the full horror of the bombing of the Manchester Arena. It was an unspeakable crime which has caused loss, heartbreak and devastating injury to many. It is impossible to read the papers in this case without feeling the most profound sympathy for the bereaved, for the injured survivors and for their families.
Interesting here is Sharp’s automatic deference to the newspapers for knowledge of the “full horror” of what happened.
The newspapers did indeed paint a dire picture, as the following examples demonstrate.
“A homeless man, called Steve, described the moment he had to ‘pull nails out of children’s faces’ following the shocking attack” (Daily Mail, May 23, 2017).
Joanne McSorley, 43, “suffered shrapnel injuries all over her body, the force of which broke both her arms and a leg” (Manchester Evening News, May 29. 2017).
“After nearly a month since being hurt in the tragedy, Laura MacIntyre is now able to eat and drink without a feeding tube but has a long road of recovery ahead, said her parents Michael and Nan MacIntyre” (The Herald, June 16, 2017).
“Gary [Blamire] managed to shield his wife from the severity of the blast, but his leg was shattered. His watch was smashed off his wrist, fracturing the bone on both sides, while the blast also left a gash in his mouth, knocking out several teeth” (Manchester Evening News, April 27, 2020).
The problem is, however, that the legacy media has demonstrably lied so many times about what took place in the City Room on May 22, 2017, that there is no reason to trust any of its reports concerning the incident and its aftermath.
Lies About Building Damage
For example, the legacy media lied about damage to the City Room.
In a Daily Mail article dated June 26, 2017, there are three mentions of wooden hoarding replacing shattered glass panels, yet no photographic evidence of this is provided. In one of those mentions, we are told that “huge re-enforced glass panels [which can only refer to the skylight], shattered from the blast, have been replaced by wooden hoarding.”
However, we know this to be a lie, because of the drone footage commissioned by UK Critical Thinker at the start of June 2017, which clearly shows the skylight undamaged (see Part 12).
On July 6, 2017, the Guardian claimed that “When the device was detonated, it was so powerful it caused a crater in the arena’s concrete floor and a 23 sq metre (250 sq ft) glass skylight shattered.”
Again, we know both claims to be false. Below is the “seat of the blast” according to GMP. It does not show a “crater”:
Source: Manchester Evening News
Implausible Claims About Injuries
Returning, then, to injuries, the legacy media was willing to “report” virtually any claim, no matter how exaggerated or ridiculous.
For example, the Mail, on May 23, 2017, cited 17-year-old Abby Mullen, an alleged eyewitness:
As we were leaving a bomb or explosion went off centimetres in front of me. People’s skin, blood and faeces were everywhere including in my hair and on my bag […] That sound, the blood & those who were running around clueless with body parts & bits of skin missing will not be leaving my mind any time soon […]
The same article also cites Chris Parker, the homeless man who took the Parker photograph:
I saw a little girl — she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said 'where is your mum and daddy?' She said “my dad is at work, my mum is up there.”
Neither of those sensationalist claims is remotely plausible.
The Irish Sun on May 24, 2017, claimed that
[Kim Dick] and husband Phil were just yards from the terrorist. The couple miraculously cheated death as they were blown into the air.
Yet, the same article leads with a photograph of Kim Dick tending to Freya Lewis at the Casualty Clearing Station, with no damage to her clothing and barely a hair out of place.
Source: The Irish Sun
Pighooey questions how Leeds-based professional photographer Glen Minikin was able to gain access to take that photograph, which, interestingly, is absent from the UK version of the same Sun article.
The Guardian on October 20, 2020, reported that Thomas McCallum was injured and that his partner, Julie Whitley, spent 11 days in hospital. Yet, Whitley is not mentioned in the Inquiry report or transcripts, and we know from CCTV imagery that McCallum was by himself from the moment he entered the City Room:
In short, nothing the legacy media has to say about injuries is to be trusted.
Manchester: The Night of the Bomb
The BBC’s Manchester: The Night of the Bomb was a major shaper of public opinion about the Manchester Arena incident. Yet, its claims about injuries (and virtually everything else) lack sound evidential foundation.
For example, the programme plays GMP Inspector Michael Smith’s claim over police comms (without naming him):
I have just discovered that it looks like a nuts and bolts bomb […] Many of the casualties have got nuts and bolts in them.
We know from the leaked police radio communications, however, that Smith inserted false information about Abedi’s body being found through the doors to the Arena concourse (see Part 11), which both the BBC and the Inquiry chose to omit. Therefore, there is no reason to trust any other information that Smith provided on the night.
Two teenage girls speak of their injuries. Ella McGovern claims to have had perforated ear drums and to have had “fat hanging out my leg and blood.” Her mother, Louise McGovern, claims “Her jeans were full of holes and there was part of her leg coming out of her right jean” (16:00).
Photographic evidence appears to reveal possible evidence of puncture marks on McGovern’s right leg, plus a small bandage, but nothing to suggest that part of her leg was coming through her jeans (Hall, 2020, p. 58).
Amelia Tomlinson claims
When I was on the floor and I realised that my fingers was [sic.] hanging off, I saw all the bone and the ligaments inside my hand, and the tip was hanging off. (15:40)
Her mother claims “I thought, there’s no way they’re going to be able to save [the fingers].” Photographic evidence does show an injury to Tomlinson’s left middle finger (Hall, 2020, p. 55), but it does not appear that it or other fingers were “hanging off.”
Leonora Ogerio (partner of Robby Potter) claimed “I started to feel so much pain, I started to cry. […] I was asking to be shot, because I don’t want to feel the pain any more.” Paul Price (partner of Elaine McIver) claimed “I just thought, this is the end, this is death.” There is no claim relating to a specific injury in either case, and both claims are unfalsifiable.
Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack
As we know, the Inquiry imposed a blackout on images of injuries, medical reports, and post-mortem reports, meaning that the public has not officially seen any primary evidence of an actual injury sustained during the Manchester Arena incident.
Therefore, it is significant that some injuries were shown in ITV’s Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack.
In this section, I simply show the images and cite the accompanying narration. They relate to Martin Hibbert and Adam Lawler.
Martin Hibbert
Source: Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack (19:10)
Adam Lawler
Adam Lawler accompanied Oliva Campbell-Hardy to the concert.
According to ITV, “A bolt passed through his cheek, and another through his chin. He lost seven teeth” (27:55).
Source: Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack (26:18-28:31)
“Both of Adam’s legs were also fractured” (28:20).
Source: Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack (27:45-28:59)
Although the programme draws the viewer’s attention to Lawler’s left leg, a more severe looking injury appears on the back of his right leg:
Source: Manchester: 100 Days After The Attack (29:07)
More images of injuries that appeared in the legacy media can be found in Hall (2020, pp. 46-65).
Because I am not medically qualified to comment, I do not propose to discuss these images. I am simply highlighting that imagery of injuries allegedly sustained during the Manchester Arena incident is — despite the Inquiry’s blackout — publicly available for those who wish to inspect it.
Conclusion
For a mass casualty incident, there is surprisingly little evidence relating to injuries in the Inquiry report. Only a minimal description of fatal injuries is offered for the 22, with the exceptions of Roussos and Atkinson. Some “survivor” injuries also get a brief mention.
For Atkinson and Roussos, the severity of the injuries is attested to by a raft of professionals, many of them military, based on imagery provided to them by the State. The public has not seen that imagery and has no way of forming a judgment regarding its authenticity, or indeed the reliability of the “expert” assessments.
In the case of Roussos, many people are on record as having assisted in her care in the City Room, in the ambulance, and at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Some of the injury detail they provided is graphic and distressing.
Despite the cynical use of children for propaganda purposes in the “War on Terror,” and despite my understanding of the Big Lie technique, I personally cannot accept that so many people could have lied in such gruesome detail about the death of an eight-year-old girl.
But perhaps that says more about my own psychological limitations, which the Big Lie is designed to exploit. Strictly speaking, there is no publicly available primary empirical evidence, such as CCTV or body-worn camera footage, medical reports, or post-mortem reports, to corroborate the eyewitness claims made vis-à-vis Roussos.
In that respect, Davis (2024, p. 314) makes an important point:
Hall stated that primary, observable physical evidence outweighed witness accounts. Hall argued that witness accounts were only credible if they were supported by physical evidence and could not be considered substantive if they were wholly contradicted by the physical evidence.
The highly emotive case of Roussos is the acid test of Hall’s logic. For here we have multiple interlocking witness accounts across three different spaces (City Room, ambulance, hospital) over a period of just over an hour (Roussos was declared dead at 23:40 [§18.135]). The claims made are highly specific and not the kind of thing that ordinary people would make up.
Yet, there is no publicly available primary empirical evidence to support those witness accounts. In fact, such evidence points to the lack of a TATP shrapnel bomb (see Part 2).
For example, Saunders claims that body-worn camera footage was too appalling to show, yet the public has seen the Barr footage and the Parker photograph (which even the New York Times published), and they show nothing of the kind, some 12-15 minutes post-detonation.
What we do know, thanks to the “Blast Wave Panel of Experts” assembled by Saunders, is that the kinds of blast injuries associated with a TATP shrapnel bomb are radically inconsistent with what took place in the City Room. Not only is the number of people officially killed and injured too low, but there are numerous examples of people who should have been seriously injured or killed, yet were not.
The estimated number of casualties and fatalities by eyewitnesses in the first half hour post-detonation falls far short of the official numbers. Yet, the numbers reported following the launch of the Manchester Emergency Fund rose to over 1,000 by the time of the Inquiry, inflating the magnitude of the event in public consciousness. Two thirds of those claimed injuries were psychological, and to the extent that the additional physical injuries were genuine, they were evidently caused by the stampede to exit the Arena.
The legacy media played a reprehensible role in exaggerating the scale and severity of the injuries. Most of the claims it made turn out to be demonstrably false and sensationalist. That said, the legacy media did provide a repertoire of images of alleged injuries that the Inquiry was keen to avoid, and those wishing to explore the theme of injuries further would do well to start with Chapter 7 of Hall’s book.
The bottom line is that irrefutable evidence of injuries incurred as a result of Salman Abedi detonating a TATP shrapnel bomb in the City Room does not appear to exist in the public domain.