Survivors of Manchester Arena bombing in legal action to secure core participant status at public inquiry

Survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing are taking legal action to try to secure core participant status at the public inquiry into the atrocity.

Law firm Irwin Mitchell said it had been instructed by more than 40 people seriously injured in the 2017 bombing to apply to the High Court for judicial review of inquiry chair Sir John Saunders’s refusal of this status.

Core participant status has been granted to relatives of those killed, police, security and emergency services and Greater Manchester authorities. The inquiry is due to begin next year.

Irwin Mitchell said survivors argued that fairness demanded they should have the same status, as some had life-long serious injuries and disabilities caused by the bomb blast.

Associate solicitor Saoirse De Bont said: “While it’s vital that the families who lost loved ones remain at the heart of the inquiry, our clients believed their first-hand accounts of the security measures that were in place on the night and the response to the attack, would be key to the most thorough inquiry being held.”

Suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated a rucksack bomb in an Arena foyer after an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017 - killing 22 people and injuring hundreds more. In March his brother Hashem Abedi was found guilty of murdering 22 people.

Mark Smulian