Police officer who missed Manchester Bomber said he should have taken a ‘more proportionate’ break 

A police officer who missed the Manchester Arena suicide bomber after driving five miles for a kebab with a female colleague during a two-hour lunch has admitted he should have taken a ‘more proportionate’ break.

Mark Renshaw travelled from Victoria Station near the arena to Mazaa’s kebab shop in Longsight to get a takeaway with British Transport Police constable Jessica Bullough, who later won an award for her bravery during the attack.

After the 41-minute round trip, the pair then spent another hour and a half eating their food in a Northern Rail office.

PC Renshaw – who was a community support officer at the time – said he thought the 41-minute journey wasn’t part of their break because ‘if someone was to flag us down we would deal with that incident’.

He also said the pair were wearing high-vis and had their ‘personal radios’ on them.

But he admitted their break should have been ‘more proportionate’ than the two hours and nine minutes the pair ended up taking.

PC Bullough yesterday admitted to the inquiry she would ‘probably’ have asked killer Salman Abedi what was in his rucksack had she seen him, and said her break should have lasted for up to an hour.

She came back on patrol shortly after the suicide bomber walked along Victoria railway station platform towards the City Room foyer of the arena.

He then detonated his home-made explosives at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds of others on May 22, 2017. 

Despite missing Abedi, PC Bullough was among the first officers on the scene and received a Queen’s Police Medal last year for her bravery during the aftermath.

PC Mark Renshaw – who missed the Manchester Arena suicide bombing because he drove five miles away for a kebab with a female PC – admitted he should have taken a ‘more proportionate’ break

PC Renshaw travelled in a car from Victoria Station to Mazaa's kebab shop (pictured) in Longsight, Manchester, to get takeaway with British Transport Police (BTP) officer Jessica Bullough - a round trip of 41 minutes

PC Renshaw travelled in a car from Victoria Station to Mazaa’s kebab shop (pictured) in Longsight, Manchester, to get takeaway with British Transport Police (BTP) officer Jessica Bullough – a round trip of 41 minutes

PC Renshaw told the inquiry today: ‘My understanding at the time was that when we went to get food, I thought that was not part of our rest because we were [wearing] high-vis and if someone was to flag us down we would deal with that incident.’ 

John Cooper QC, for the victims’ families, asked: ‘Were you on high-vis patrol at the kebab shop? 

‘Does that mean you could have gone anywhere as long as you were in uniform in the Manchester area? You could have gone shopping in Tesco to get a Danish?’

The officer replied: ‘If that was my refreshment of choice. 

‘If we came across anything, we had our personal radios with us.’

He was asked why they had chosen the kebab shop in Longsight, and told the inquiry: ‘I was based at Manchester Piccadilly and was not familiar with that area of Manchester. 

‘At that time possibly we went there because it was the only one I knew.’

‘Have you learned your lesson?’ Mr Cooper asked.

PC Bullough receiving a Queen's Police Medal at Buckingham Palace

PC Bullough receiving a Queen’s Police Medal at Buckingham Palace 

‘I would go in a more proportionate time frame,’ PC Renshaw said. 

The inquiry also heard that a worried member of the public asked Abedi, ‘What have you got in your rucksack?’ but was ‘fobbed off’ after raising concerns to security. 

Christopher Wild spoke to the 22-year-old, dressed in black and with a ‘massive’ rucksack, as his appearance and presence outside the concert appeared ‘strange’ and ‘dodgy’ to Mr Wild and his partner Julie Whitley – both believed to be from East Yorkshire.

The couple were waiting in the City Room – the foyer of the arena – to pick up Ms Whitley’s daughter, 14, and her daughter’s friend, after the concert.

They came across Abedi, hiding at the back of the City Room, shortly before he detonated his home-made rucksack bomb, at 10.30pm.

Mr Wild told the hearing in Manchester: ‘I just thought it was strange. It’s a kids concert. It just all seemed very strange to me why he would be sat there.

‘He was keeping out of view and that’s another reason why I thought it was strange.

‘I started to think about things that happened in the world, I just thought it could be dangerous.’

Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked the witness: ‘What danger was it? What did you think he might do?’

Mr Wild said: ‘Let a bomb off.’

He continued: ‘I decided to have a word with him. Because Julie was wary of him and so was I. I just wanted to know why he was there.

PC Mark Renshaw and PC Jessica Bullough drove five miles from Victoria Station, close to the arena, to Mazaa's kebab shop in Longsight to fetch their food - a round trip of 41 minutes

PC Mark Renshaw and PC Jessica Bullough drove five miles from Victoria Station, close to the arena, to Mazaa’s kebab shop in Longsight to fetch their food – a round trip of 41 minutes

The officer came back on patrol shortly after suicide the bomber walked along Victoria railway station platform towards the City Room foyer of the arena

The officer came back on patrol shortly after suicide the bomber walked along Victoria railway station platform towards the City Room foyer of the arena

‘I asked him what he was doing there, did he know how bad it looked, him sitting there out of sight of everybody?

‘I felt a bit bad about challenging him, but I asked what have you got in your rucksack?

‘He didn’t reply, he just looked up at me.

‘I said “It doesn’t look very good you know, what you see with bombs and such, you with a rucksack like this in a place like this, what are you doing?”.’

Mr Wild said Abedi told him he was ‘waiting for someone’ and asked him a couple of times “what the time was”.

‘He seemed on edge, nervous,’ Mr Wild added.

Shortly after, at around 10.14pm – around 16 minutes before Abedi detonated his rucksack bomb – Mr Wild approached Mohammed Agha, a Showsec steward, the security contractors for the arena.

He said he told him he was ‘very concerned’ about the man, hiding with a large rucksack.

‘He said he already knew about him and that was it really,’ Mr Wild said, agreeing he felt ‘fobbed off’.

Mr Wild was himself injured in the blast but not as seriously as his partner, who spent 11 days in hospital and has to ‘live with the consequences of that night to this day,’ the hearing was told.

Mr Greaney asked Ms Whitley what she thought the ‘dodgy’ man could be.

Ms Whitley replied: ‘I did think he could be, yeah, I thought he could be, I can’t think I thought he had a bomb, that he could be a terrorist maybe.

‘But I can’t say that I thought a bomber, but he just looked dodgy.’

John Cooper QC, representing some of the victims’ families, said the man the witness saw had a backpack, was dressed in black and was on his own.

Ms Whitley replied: ‘I know what you are saying, I thought it but I never voiced it, what he could be.’

Mr Cooper continued: ‘Let me just delicately ask you, and no one is going to judge you by what you thought, but if you are holding back, no one is going to judge you on this, but what did you think in your heart of hearts?’

Ms Whitley replied: ‘I thought he was maybe going to do something, either have something in the backpack, like a gun or something.

Jessica Bullough, pictured, went on an 'unacceptable' two-hour break the day of Salman Abedi's suicide attack - and would 'probably' have asked what was in his rucksack had she seen him, an inquiry has heard

Jessica Bullough, pictured, went on an ‘unacceptable’ two-hour break the day of Salman Abedi’s suicide attack – and would ‘probably’ have asked what was in his rucksack had she seen him, an inquiry has heard

‘I never thought it could be a bomb, but I could not believe he was there, that he had got there, so that made me think perhaps he is.

‘I perhaps thought he was a bomber maybe.’

The inquiry, expected to conclude next spring, will continue on Wednesday morning.

Yesterday, PC Bullough broke down in tears as she spoke about how she had struggled to cope in the arena following the explosion. 

She was a probationer and the senior officer on duty was dealing with a burglary elsewhere at the time. 

‘The training I had was not sufficient to deal with what I was witnessing,’ she said.    

Last week the inquiry was told about 30 minutes before the explosion security worker Julie Merchant, checking for merchandise bootleggers, had briefly drawn Pc Bullough’s attention to a ‘praying crank’ on the upstairs level of the foyer.

Ms Merchant said she did not think the man was a bomber but thought it ‘worth mentioning’ as he had ‘secreted himself away in an area he should not have been’. 

She told the inquiry: ‘I just thought it was worth mentioning.

‘Even though I was not suspicious of him, like worst case scenario he was going to be a bomber, I was suspicious that he had secreted himself away.

‘In that way it was a security issue … because he was in an area he should not have been, an area that is all tucked away.’ 

PC Bullough said she had no recollection of anyone approaching her to raise concerns and was ‘confident’ that no-one told her about a person praying. 

Speaking at the inquest yesterday, Mr Greaney asked her: ‘When you look back, does that seem to be acceptable?’

She replied: ‘No, unacceptable.’

Mr Greaney went on: ‘You had just missed Salman Abedi walking to the City Room from the train platform.

‘Obviously we all know what he is about to do but if you had come on patrol 10 minutes earlier and you had seen that man walking in that way would you have regarded him as suspicious?’

PC Bullough said: ‘Even though it was a train station with people travelling with large rucksacks on their back… looking at the footage if he had walked past me with that bag on his back I probably would have asked him what was in it.’

How PC was awarded with a Queen’s Police Medal for her bravery during the bombing  

The PC who is today facing difficult questions over her conduct during the Manchester Arena bombing originally received a medal for her bravery during the terror attack.

Pc Bullough, from Leigh, was one of four British Transport Police officers to get on the scene first along with three community support officers. 

She was handed a Queen’s Police Medal, an award created in 1954 to recognise gallantry or distinguished service. 

At the time she told the Leigh Journal:  ‘It was like utter carnage when I got there; like something out of a war zone.

‘It was a tough situation but it’s our job so we helped as many people as we could to get them out and save as many people as possible.

‘I carried as many people as I could out of the building and gave them first aid.

‘Obviously you don’t expect that to happen every day of your life but I think the adrenaline kept me going.’ 

She said her suspicions would have been raised by somebody walking ‘nearly to the ground’ with a heavy rucksack.

She later became the first member of the emergency services to arrive at the scene of the explosion after she ‘overtook colleagues’ as she dashed across and provided assistance to casualties.

Giving evidence, her supervisor, William Drysdale, said he too had not previously witnessed anyone praying at the venue but did so on the raised mezzanine level of the City Room at about 9.40pm.

Asked if he thought that was unusual at the time, he replied: ‘Yes and no.

‘Yes, because I had never seen it before and no, as far as I knew being a Muslim if you have not prayed you find a quiet spot and then you pray there.’

Mr Drysdale said he did not regard him as suspicious.

He stated to police that the man’s backpack was ‘so large that it was above his head’.

In his statement, he went on: ‘As I looked a little bit longer I saw him rocking back and forward.

‘I couldn’t tell if he was kneeling or sitting because he was quite low behind a 3ft wall which he was behind as we were just a slight angle from him.

‘I knew he was not standing because the wall is only very small.

Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard Pc Bullough, who joined BTP in July 2016, was the most experienced officer at the Arena complex after another constable with 30 years of experience was called away to deal with a burglary suspect at Piccadilly rail station.

Stephen Corke said he normally would have been standing on the raised level of the foyer from about 10pm for concerts but he would have been at the opposite end to where Abedi hid for nearly an hour out of sight of CCTV cameras.

When the bomb was detonated there were no uniformed officers in the foyer despite instructions that one officer should be positioned there at the end of the concert.

They had left the arena unpatrolled for 40 minutes while all took a meal break at the same time, despite instructions to stagger their breaks and finish by 9pm.

PC Corke was not among them because he had decided to check on a ‘vulnerable location’ that was on his way from Greater Manchester Police headquarters to Victoria Station, he said.

The location, which he did not specify, was only on the route because a road was being dug up in Ancoats, and he only did a ‘drive by’ check, he added

As a result the officer was at the wrong end of Deansgate, one of the main shopping streets in Manchester, when the bomb went off and he had to drive at speed down the street to the arena.

His colleague, Matthew Martin, who was the passenger in the car, said they had visited Oxford Road and Deansgate stations to ‘watch a few trains go in and out.’

PC Corke would normally have positioned himself on the mezzanine floor close to where Salman Abedi, the bomber, spent an hour hiding.

He was asked if he had seen Abedi waiting in the City Room with a rucksack on his back, whether he would have realised he was out of place.

‘I’d like to think so yes. If it was for a period of time I would agree with you entirely,’ he said.

Mr Greaney said there were a lot of ‘ifs and buts in this’ but asked, ‘would you have approached him?’

‘There’s a good chance of that, yes’ the officer said.

But the inquiry heard that PC Corke had spent seven hours dealing with the arrest and interview of a burglary suspect at Greater Manchester Police headquarters at Central Park before heading to Piccadilly Station.

He claimed he had been on hold to the team at the ‘evidence review gateway’ at British Transport Police headquarters in Birmingham for an hour before he could complete the paperwork.

PC Corke said he ‘scrounged a lift’ with another officer who was on duty and chose to ‘pop into a vulnerable point.’

Pictured: Ambulances and police arriving to Manchester Arena following the explosion

Pictured: Ambulances and police arriving to Manchester Arena following the explosion

Mr Greaney asked: ‘You knew the expectation was that you would be back by 10.30pm. May I ask you a very direct question and seek a direct answer, why were you not back by 10.30pm?

‘The route we had chosen, we chose to visit a vulnerable point and I mistimed it by a couple of minutes,’ he said.

The inquiry heard that PC Corke completed the interview by 5.40pm, five hours before the attack, and told his sergeant at 9pm that he would finish of the paperwork and take a quick meal break before heading to the arena.

‘I was aware that I had to get back to the concert and I thought that I could commit to both within that timescale but unfortunately I mistimed it by a couple of minutes,’ PC Corke said.

‘On the night in question, it did not come into my mind that someone would stoop so low as to do something like that in that location. It was never in the back of my mind.

‘We all received various degrees of counter-terrorism briefings but not on that night in question. There was nothing to indicate there was any threat on that evening.’

PC Corke said his role was to conduct ‘a general high visibility patrol showing there are police in the area to the all the security staff, the merchandising people and the waiting parents.

‘The main thrust of that would be ensuring that the people leave the arena in a safe fashion, getting on the trains and leaving the area.

PC Lewis Brown from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) was a trainee Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) with British Transport Police (BTP) at the time being mentored by PCSO Jon Morrey.

He admitted that they had both taken an hour and a half meal break in a room at Victoria Station, when the maximum time should have been an hour.

It meant that from 8.58pm to 9.30pm, while Abedi made his way up to the City Room, there were no police officers patrolling the outside of the arena.

PC Brown was asked by Nick de la Poer QC for the inquiry: ‘Was there any perception that the deployment at Manchester Arena or Victoria Station being an easy option?

‘No there was nothing voiced that it was an easy option,’ he said.

Mr de la Poer asked what his sergeant would have thought if he had turned up and found them all on a meal break.

‘I believe the sergeant would have wanted to know why we were on a break for that time, if there was any good reason and would have words of advice with us,’ the officer said.

‘Was there any good reason?’ Mr de la Poer asked.

‘No, I just think we were on break too long,’ PC Brown said.

The inquiry, expected to conclude next spring, continues on Tuesday.

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