Manchester Arena bomb survivors to find out whether harassment claim successful

Two survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing are due to find out whether they have won a High Court harassment case against a former television producer who believes the attack was staged.

Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve are suing former television producer Richard Hall for harassment and data protection over his claims in several videos and a book that the attack was staged.

The father and daughter were at the Ariana Grande concert in May 2017 and suffered life-changing injuries, with Mr Hibbert left with a spinal cord injury and Miss Hibbert facing severe brain damage.

But Mr Hall has claimed his actions – including an incident of filming Miss Hibbert outside her home – were in the public interest as a journalist and that “millions of people have bought a lie” about the attack.

He told the London court in a three-and-a-half-day trial in July: “The primary evidence shows there was no bomb in that room that exploded.”

Mrs Justice Steyn is now due to give her decision on the case in writing on Wednesday.

Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured hundreds when he detonated the homemade rucksack-bomb in the crowd of concert-goers, with the court told that the Hibberts were some of the nearest people to him at the time of the blast.

Mr Hall has claimed that several of those who died are living abroad or were dead before the attack, telling the court he believed that no-one was “genuinely injured” in the bombing.

But Jonathan Price, for the Hibberts, said the pair were some of the closest to Abedi when he detonated the bomb and that the attack changed Mr Hibbert’s life “in every conceivable way”.

“They have both suffered life-changing injuries from which they will never recover,” the barrister said.

The court heard that Mr Hibbert received 22 wounds from shrapnel, and Miss Hibbert suffered a “catastrophic brain injury” after a bolt from the bomb struck her in the head – leading to her being presumed dead at the scene.

Mr Price added: “Martin, paralysed, saw Eve lying next to him with a hole in her head and assumed he was watching her die, unable to help. He saw others lying dead or injured around him.”

Mrs Justice Steyn’s judgment is due to be handed down at 10.30am.