Manchester Arena Inquiry: Police chief 'not the right man for the job'

The highest ranking police officer in the emergency response to the Manchester Arena bombing has agreed a tactical commander was "not competent".

Deputy Chief Constable Debbie Ford told the Manchester Arena Inquiry she had felt a "growing unease" Supt Arif Nawaz was not doing what he should.

On Monday, Supt Nawaz told the inquiry he did not have the training to carry out the role of commander.

DCC Ford told the hearing he was "not the right man for the job".

She said that was "a fair assessment, because he hadn't been given the training or knowledge that he should have had to fulfil that role that night".

The attack, which followed a concert at the venue on 22 May 2017, left 22 people dead and hundreds more injured.

The inquiry was told that Supt Nawaz called DCC Ford, who was then Assistant Chief Constable at Greater Manchester Police (GMP), at home about 20 minutes after the explosion to report what had happened and to ask what she wanted him to do.

DCC Ford, who was Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) gold commander on the night, told the hearing that after subsequent calls, she began developing a sense that Supt Nawaz was not the right man for the job in the circumstances.

Supt Nawaz was replaced in his role by another colleague at midnight, about 90 minutes after the bombing.

DCC Ford said that when she was first told about the bombing, she believed there was a "material prospect" of an armed terrorist also being involved and a "high prospect of further attacks to come".

She said she drove from home to the command suite which had been set up at GMP headquarters, but it had not been until about 90 minutes after the explosion that senior commanders had a full understanding of what was happening, which she accepted was "less than ideal".

However, she said it would "always take time to happen".

"You're always going to be left in a position in a spontaneous response, such as this was, that you are reliant on your sergeants and inspectors and those people already on the ground to make some of those assessments and judgements as to what's best to do," she said.

She said she was told in a phone call from a police commander 70 minutes after the bombing that there was "no fire", a reference there being no fire crews deployed to the arena.

"That didn't register with me in that call that fire service were not present at the scene," she said, admitting that missing it was "unfortunate".

She told the inquiry that it was not until the following afternoon that she realised firefighters had not arrived at the arena until more than two hours after the explosion.

She said she was also unaware that only three trained paramedics had been directly to the bomb scene.

"I think it's a surprise to me after the event," she said.

"It surprises me that I didn't know fire was there, but I would have expected them to be in there."

DCC Ford accepted there had been failures in the way emergency services worked together.

"The partnership working was not as it should have been and could have been much better," she said.

"I think it worked well in part… there were obviously failings in our response in terms of working together [and] sharing information."

The inquiry continues.

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