MI5 failings in the Manchester Arena bombing suggest it may be time to expand our secret defences

Editorial: According to the report of the inquiry led by Sir John Saunders, the Security Service missed a ‘significant’ chance to stop the terror attack

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of persons of interest known to the authorities (PA)

The final report into the Manchester Arena bombing contains a particularly disturbing revelation. It was a horrific attack, targeting as it did young people and their families attending an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017. A total of 22 people were killed and 1,017 were injured, many seriously, by Salman Abedi’s shrapnel-laden device. It seems this horror could have been averted.

We now know Abedi was on the radar of the security services, and that a meeting had been arranged to discuss his case, scheduled for 31 May – nine days after the attack. He was not under active investigation when he detonated his bomb, even though MI5 had key information about his activities. According to the report of the inquiry led by Sir John Saunders, the Security Service missed a “significant” chance to stop the attack.

The precise nature of the intelligence received before the attack has been withheld for reasons of national security, but there seems no cause to doubt Sir John’s finding that it was linked to Abedi’s plot. His judgement was that “an ordinary member of the public would be deeply concerned to find out that, some time before the attack, the Security Service had information that transpired to be relevant to Abedi’s plan and yet took no action in response.”