Manchester Arena Inquiry: Fire call operators sorry for error after bomb

Two fire service call operators have apologised for failing to tell a senior officer important information on the night of the Manchester Arena attack.

Joanne Haslam and Dean Casey were giving evidence to an inquiry into the 2017 bombing.

Ms Haslam admitted it was "an error" not to tell the station manager police and ambulances were at the scene but she thought he knew.

Fire crews were not mobilised for over two hours, the inquiry has heard.

The inquiry is looking at the circumstances surrounding the suicide bombing, which killed 22 people and injured hundreds more.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service duty liaison officer Andy Berry previously told the inquiry he would have deployed firefighters much earlier if he had been told other emergency services were responding directly to the incident.

At the time of the attack, Mr Casey had not fully qualified as a call operator at North West Fire Control.

He accepted he did not pass on a "substantial amount of information" to Mr Berry about the involvement of other emergency crews, which had been put on the incident log by colleagues.

When asked why, he said: "I've not got an excuse for not passing that on, so I apologise."

He added he should have looked back at the incident log to get more detail.

Mr Casey, who had joined the control room in August 2016, admitted the training he had received was not adequate to deal with what he faced on the night.

Ms Haslam, an experienced call operator, admitted she did not tell Mr Berry an ambulance commander was already at the scene of the bombing.

"I admit I made an error. I should have looked through the log," she said.

"I thought he had got that information and obviously he hadn't. I apologise, I should have asked."

But Ms Haslam told the inquiry she believed the control room dealt with the attack in a calm and professional way.

In a written statement to the hearing she said: "I think we worked well as a team on the night, trying to manage a very difficult situation with conflicting and sometimes confusing messages being relayed to us through multiple individuals."

When she was asked what the atmosphere was like as the incident unfolded, Ms Haslam replied: "Upset. Just shoc. They kept coming around, doing like a welfare, to check we were all all right."

The inquiry continues.

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