It took police years to admit Arena bomb failings - and there are still big questions for GMP

Bosses at Greater Manchester Police are bracing themselves for stinging criticism over a string of failures on the night of the Manchester Arena bombing.

For years, the force insisted its work that terrible night had been effective and probably saved lives.

Belatedly it now admits a series of deficiencies, centred around a failure to communicate with other emergency services and training, and has formally apologised twice at the continuing public inquiry into the disaster.

They are apologies that took some time to arrive.

And, families of some of the 22 who died in that 2017 Islamic State-inspired suicide bombing believe that even today - almost five years later - the force is trying to 'completely offload responsibility' to one officer, and to suggest its admitted failures that night actually made no difference at all to the toll of dead and injured.

This is because in GMP's submissions to the inquiry they suggest that one officer's errors - those of Chief Inspector Dale Sexton - were at the heart of its failings on the night.

To the families, this is totally unacceptable. Not least in the face of weeks of damning evidence which pointed to a string of other significant failures - and revealed that at least one of the victims could have been saved.

The force duty officer on that Monday night of May 22, 2017, as Ariana Grande was coming to the end of her concert at the arena, was the now retired Chief Inspector Dale Sexton, a man who was unprepared to deal with the aftermath of Salman Abedi's suicide bombing.

Sitting behind his desk on a raised platform in GMP's control room in east Manchester with 35 staff, his was an absolutely key position, the 'hub' of what was supposed to be a well-drilled coordinated response by