Manchester Arena bombing survivor becomes police constable five years after major terrorist attack

A teaching assistant who survived the Manchester Arena bombing has become a Durham police constable after applying to join the force when an ISIS-supporting terrorist callously murdered 22 innocent concert-goers.

Josh Elliott, 27, decided to serve in the line of duty after Salman Abedi slaughtered young revellers and injured more than 1,000 more at an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.

Thankfully he and his friends avoided the deadly blasts – but Mr Elliott was so overcome by the rapid response to the atrocity that he decided to swap the classroom for the beat. He has since been promoted to the role of police constable.

Mr Elliott said: ‘It was a horrendous situation to be in. But seeing how the officers sprang into action and put themselves in danger to get us to safety just made something click in me.

‘But seeing how the officers sprang into action and put themselves in danger to get us to safety just made something click in me.

‘I saw it as a way of turning a negative into a positive and I knew then that I had to go into policing.’

‘We were literally walking out and just heard this massive bang and then saw the smoke and people started to run and scream,’ he said.

‘No one knew what was going on.

‘There were about 30 or 40 cop cars there and I just remember thinking it was like an army of police who had come out of nowhere to get us to safety.

‘They were helping us get out and making sure we were ok. They were just getting us away from the danger and carnage.

‘It’s hard to explain but seeing it all was just crazy and I just remember feeling an instant wave of relief and thinking, these people are mint and I would love to be someone like that.’

It comes after bereaved families branded Salman Abedi’s elder brother a ‘coward’ after he fled the UK and failed to give evidence at a public inquiry.

Ismail Abedi, 29, boarded a flight from Manchester to Istanbul claiming to be going on holiday last summer but never returned to the UK and his current whereabouts is unknown. 

Lawyers for some of the families said they remain ‘gravely concerned’ about how he was able to leave the country last year.

He failed to attend a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on 2 August, having last month been found guilty of failing to comply with a notice which compelled him to co-operate with the inquiry into the May 2017 atrocity – where his brother Salman killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert.

Now, an arrest warrant has been issued and Abedi faces a prison sentence of up to 51 weeks for the offence if he is captured or hands himself into the authorities.

Kim Harrison, principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who represented 11 of the families, said today: ‘We welcome the arrest warrant that has been issued for Ismail Abedi [on 2 August] and expect all of the relevant authorities to do their utmost to ensure he has to answer the many questions we have about what happened that night.

‘His leaving the country should never have happened and despite the conviction he is unlikely to face any real justice until he is apprehended, if at all. 

‘The families deserve to know the truth about what happened that night and the contempt Ismail Abedi has shown them is truly despicable. 

‘Now we expect the authorities to do everything in their power to bring Abedi to justice.’

Sophie Cartwright QC, prosecuting, told the court that notification of the hearing had been sent to Abedi’s last known address.

An email was also sent to an address he had previously used to correspond with the solicitor to the inquiry, as well as a message to his former solicitors, she said.

District Judge Jack McGarva said he was satisfied that Abedi was aware of the hearing and noted that the proceedings had received a ‘great deal of publicity’.

Issuing a warrant without bail, he said: ‘We will now have to wait for him to be apprehended.’

Ismail, who worked in IT, was ordered by the chairman of the subsequent public inquiry Sir John Saunders to attend to give evidence and was described as a key witness, since he would be able to answer questions about the radicalisation of his younger brothers.

The inquiry also wanted to probe Ismail about a 2015 ‘port stop’ at Heathrow Airport, when his phone was found to have a ‘significant’ amount of ‘very disturbing’ material described as of an ‘Islamic State-mindset’ on it.

He had potential evidence to give, the inquiry heard, on the preparation of the arena bomb, given his DNA was found on a hammer in a car used to store the explosives.  

Ismail was stopped by police at Manchester Airport on August 28 last year and told them he was planning to return to UK the following month.

But he did not appear as a witness and the inquiry was told he is no longer in the country having boarded a flight from Manchester to Istanbul, claiming to be going on holiday, and his current whereabouts are unknown. 

He was listed for a hearing on Thursday 4 August under his alias, Ishmale Ben Romdhan.

Salman Abedi, 22, detonated a suicide bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017. 

A third brother Hashem Abedi, 25, was jailed for life for assisting with the bomb plot. 

In February, he was sentenced to another three years and 10 months of jail time after attacking two Belmarsh prison officers – but vowed ‘we will be leaving soon’. 

Their father, Ramadan Abedi, was associated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militia that had links with terror organisation al Qaida, the public inquiry heard.

Ramadan lives in Libya, but has also failed to co-operate with the inquiry and police want to question him as a suspect.