BBC Panorama interview family of victim of Manchester Arena attack from their new Dorset home

As the fifth anniversary of the Manchester Arena attack approaches the parents of Saffie-Rose Roussos tell their full story for the first time.

The bombing carried out by Salman Abedi, killed 22 and injured many more at an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.

In Manchester Arena Bombing: Saffie’s Story, by BBC's Panorama team, will air on BBC One tonight (March 7). The episode follows Saffie’s family as they return to Manchester from their new home on the south coast in Dorset to give evidence at the public inquiry into the bombing.

In Manchester Arena Bombing: Saffie’s Story, BBC Panorama follows Saffie’s family as they return to Manchester from their new home on the south coast. Picture: BBC

At eight years old, Saffie was the youngest victim of the attack. Following the bombing Andrew Roussos, his wife Lisa who was badly injured in the attack, needing nine operations, and their son Xander, never returned to Lancashire where they had previously lived and worked.

Andrew said: “Me and Lisa couldn’t face what we had as a family. Once Lisa left hospital. I said, ‘why don’t we just move away?’”

The family spoke to Panorama reporter Judith Moritz from their new home in Dorset, which includes a bedroom for Saffie. In the film, Lisa opens a box containing photos of Saffie and other treasured memories of her daughter, for the first time since the move.

Lisa said: “Everything in this room is what she knew, that she’d seen. That’s what we wanted. We didn’t want anything changing. She’s here with me and I wouldn’t want her anywhere else.”

The public inquiry, which began in September 2020, is looking into whether the attack could have been prevented, but some of the evidence has been heard in closed session due to national security concerns.

For the programme Saffie’s father Andrew Roussos met Lord David Anderson QC, who was the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation between 2011-2017. In 2017 he was asked by the government to carry out an independent review of M15 and counter-terror policing in the wake of terror attacks in Manchester and London during that year.

As a result of the inquiry process Andrew has learned that the bomber, Salman Abedi had been assessed by MI5 in 2014, but that after a short investigation his file had been closed. Abedi had become close to Abdalraouf Abdallah, a man suspected, then convicted and jailed for facilitating the movement of money and fighters to Syria. After MI5 closed their file on Abedi, he visited Abdallah in prison. Police had also confiscated Abdallah’s phone on which there were 1,300 messages between the two, although Abedi was not identified as having been in communication with Abdallah until the year after the attack. Andrew Roussos said: “When you go to one of our prisons in this country and visit the person that [Abedi] did on a number of occasions, plus making phone calls to this person that should have been a trigger for M15.”

Lord Anderson, who was given access to MI5 for his government-ordered review, identified gaps in the way intelligence was shared between police and the security services.

Following his meeting with Lord Anderson, Andrew Roussos told Panorama: “Questions need to be answered… why do we keep losing our loved ones”

For three years, they had believed that their daughter had been killed instantly in the explosion. However, a report commissioned at the request of their legal team, based on witness statements, as well as CCTV footage and body-worn cameras from the emergency services, concluded she was conscious and had lived for more than an hour following the blast.

Nicola Brook, the Roussos family solicitor said: “The people around Saffie, many of them did their best in appalling circumstances, but the basic medical techniques that could and should have been used, weren’t.”

However, expert witnesses who have given evidence to the inquiry are divided over whether her injuries were survivable.

Andrew said: “Finding out exactly what happened is hard to take because you don’t want anyone to suffer, never mind your child…It does make you very angry and gets you very upset to know that that little girl did everything she could to keep herself going and the system failed her, and I want to get to the bottom of that.”

North-West Ambulance Service told the inquiry that lessons have been learned, but it believes that there were “no inadequacies” in its response which contributed to Saffie’s death. Greater Manchester Police and the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have accepted failings in their overall response on the night, while Counter Terrorism Policing North West and MI5 have both told the inquiry they are sorry the attack was not stopped.

The inquiry’s conclusions are expected to be published later this year.