the times | Saturday September 5 2020 1GM 25
News
Charlotte Wace
Northern CorrespondentA woman whose son was killed in the
Manchester Arena bombing wants to
know why Salman Abedi, the Islamist
terrorist responsible, was not spotted
by police when he flew back to the UK
from Libya.
June Tron, 64, from Gateshead, said
she needed to find out if there was any
way he could have been stopped.
Abedi, who was born in Manchester
to Libyan parents, had returned four
days before detonating a home-made
bomb in the foyer of the concert venue
in May 2017.
Mrs Tron had driven to the arena
with her son, Philip, 32, who went inside
with his partner’s daughter, Courtney
Boyle, to collect her younger sister
Nicole. Philip and Courtney were
among 22 people killed when Abedi’s
bomb went off.
The Manchester Arena inquiry starts
next week and Mrs Tron said: “I don’t
want things hidden. I want to know if
this could have been prevented and I
want to know why it wasn’t. I’d like to
know why he [Abedi] wasn’t picked up
when he came back into the country.
When people want to go to Libya and
Syria, they don’t go there for package
holidays.”
People who survived the attack will
be following the inquiry without being
legally represented. Earlier this year
they lost a legal action launched after
chairman Sir John Saunders denied
survivors “core participant” status in
the hearing.
They had wanted the same rights
during the inquiry as the police, gov-
ernment and families of those who
died. Saoirse de Bont, a public law and
human rights lawyer at Irwin Mitchell,
said: “The survivor victim families we
represent were very disappointed with
the decision not to allow them to for-
mally participate in the inquiry.
“As it stands they will not have the
same rights and access to the inquiry as
other core participants such as the
police and government. They will not
be able to play a core participant role in
the inquiry and they believe that the
investigation will be limited as a result.
“Our clients just hope that as many
lessons as possible can be learned to
reduce the risk of other families suffer-
ing such heartbreak through a similar
devastating incident in the future.”hate because that is what terrorists
want. That is their aim. To divide, to
hurt people, to destroy people.
“I want to stay positive because I still
need to function as a mum, as a wife, as
a grandma, and I feel that if I gave in, I
can’t do that.”
She has campaigned, with Home
Office support, for Martyn’s Law which
would make it a legal requirement forpublic venues to have a strategy for
dealing with terrorist attacks.
Another way of coping is to talk to
young people about what happened
and she has been to Burnage Academy
for Boys, the school that Salman and
Hashem Abedi, the suicide bomber and
his younger brother, attended, several
times. “If we want a world without ter-
rorism and hate, we need to give [youngpeople] the best values we can, I firmly
believe that.” Mrs Murray’s message is
that we are all “humankind”. “Actually,
I tell them that the best thing we can be
is kind humans. The world needs kind-
ness, love and tolerance, fun and hope.
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt
like hell. I can’t tell you how painful this
is, but I can’t dissolve into tears because
then I will disintegrate.”The mother of a Manchester Arena
bombing victim is studying for a post-
graduate degree in counterterrorism.
Figen Murray told The Times that
every evening at 10.31pm, the time the
bomb went off, she thinks of her son,
how he died and whether she could
have done anything to save him. Mar-
tyn Hett, a 29-year-old PR executive,
was one of 22 victims at Manchester
Arena in May 2017.
At the time, Mrs Murray was asleep
in bed near Stockport, and she strug-
gles to come to terms with the fact that
she was not by his side.
“Inside me there’s a huge abyss, it’s
like a huge bottomless pit of grief,” she
said. “They say time is a good healer.
Three and a bit years on, it doesn’t feel
any different from the first day.
“I hate evenings, when it comes to
half past ten. I dread the ten, 15 minutes
around half past ten. I am wracked with
guilt and shame because my son lay
dead on the floor while I was asleep. I
feel like I’ve let him down as a mum.
Not that I could have saved him but it’s
just something as a mother you feel.”
She is married to Stuart, 54, a GP, and
Martyn’s stepfather from the age of
four. Until her son died she was a psy-
chotherapist, first with the NHS, and
then in private practice from the base-
ment of the family home, counselling
people with trauma, depression, anxie-
ty, and anger management. Now Mrs
Murray, 59, is working toward an MSc
in counterterrorism at the University of
Central Lancashire in Preston.
“It has been a good distraction to
focus on something else,” she said. “I
had many questions in my head that
were unanswered — things like, why
would somebody do that, why would
somebody hate people so much to do
this sort of thing?”
Mrs Murray was giving a talk to ter-
rorism students at the University of
Central Lancashire when she realised
the course might help her.
“To say they’re all evil is too simple
and honestly I wanted to know if I have
Martyn’s blood on my own hands.
When I say that to people, they think,
oh my God why would you say that?
Actually, having done the course, I
[think] that terrorism is a societal prob-
lem and I’ll take part of the blame
because I’m a member of this society. I
don’t want to succumb to anger and
Figen Murray says
the death of her
son Martyn in the
bombing left her
facing a “huge
abyss”JOEL GOODMAN FOR THE TIMES‘Why wasn’t
Arena attacker
spotted earlier?’
Terror course helps bomb victim’s mother
Duncan Gardham
Broadbent at his best in this
foolish and infuriating role
Film Kevin Maher
The Duke
Venice Film Festival
HHHHI
The spirit of Frank Capra bounces
buoyantly back to life in this
feelgood dramedy about provincial
nobodies versus big city slickers that
could easily have been retitled Mr
Bunton Goes to London.
Based on the true-life tale of
Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), a
Newcastle pensioner who was
accused of stealing Francisco Goya’s
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington
from the National Gallery in 1961, it is
really the story of an eccentric
optimist who teaches an unfeeling
world about the importance of
human connection.
“You make me me, and I make you
you,” says Broadbent’s Bunton, late
into the film, attempting to explain
his philosophy of the self to his
intrigued barrister, Jeremy
Hutchinson, QC, (Matthew Goode).
Bunton is in a holding cell at the Old
Bailey at the time, preparing for the
film’s climactic humdinger trial. Butit’s the methodology of everything
that’s gone before this that marks the
film out for greatness.
The screenplay, by the playwright
Richard Bean (One Man, Two
Guvnors) and Clive Coleman (BBC
legal correspondent), luxuriates in
scene setting and character building,
creating a working-class Newcastle
that bristles with vibrant detail.
The first half of the film layers in
the character quirks as we are
introduced to Bunton in a mildly
unflattering light, seemingly a
fast-talking, work-shy wannabe
playwright with laughable aspirations
(his latest opus is a quasi-religious
yarn called The Adventures of Susan
Christ).
His long-suffering wife, Lilya
(Helen Mirren), is unimpressed by his
penniless progress and relentless
sermonising, including his latest
crackpot scheme — a campaign topressurise the government into axing
the TV licence fee for the over-75s.
Eccentric? Yes. Parochial? Certainly
(the film is playing at the Venice
Film Festival, and I’m not
entirely sure that the
international media fully
absorbed the nuances of the
BBC licence fee debacle).
But it cleverly lays the
groundwork for what is to
come, as desperation and
grief drive the sudden
impulsive theft, which soon
involves Bunton’s son Jackie
(Fionn Whitehead), the
national press and a
plethora of Scotland
Yard’s finest (step
forward Fleabag’sSian Clifford in a wicked cameo as an
expert philologist).
Throughout everything Broadbent
is astounding, both foolish and
infuriating, but also deeply
sympathetic. It’s as if he’s
neutralised that trademark
tendency to lean towards
caricature to produce one of
the standout performances
of his career.
Roger Michell (Notting
Hill), the director, should
also take a bow. His previous
two films (Blackbird and
My Cousin Rachel) were
unsung standouts.
With this too, he is
marked out as one of
the country’s most
versatile mainstream
film-makers.
Due for release next
springHelen Mirren as the
long-suffering wife
of a true eccentric