LIVE: Manchester Arena bombing inquiry - second day of evidence on major changes following atrocity

More key figures are due to give evidence today as the Manchester Arena Inquiry begins a second day of questioning to find out if lessons have been learned from past mistakes.

Among them is due to be David Russell, Chief Fire Officer Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS).

Firefighters were held back from the scene of the 2017 tragedy because of fears of a continuing marauding terror attack, part of what inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders concluded was a 'total failure of joint working that night'.

The inquiry has found a series of failings in three damning reports in the wake of the May 2017 terror attack. Suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed himself and 22 innocents when he detonated a huge improvised device in his backpack as concert-goers were leaving an Ariana Grande gig.

The first of three inquiry reports, published in June 2021 by inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders, found 'serious shortcomings' by the venue's owners SMG, their security contractor Showsec and British Transport Police (BTP). Sir John ruled the terrorist should have been identified that night and, had he been, 'the loss of life and injury is highly likely to have been less', a conclusion that angered families of those who died.

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Sir John's second report ruled one of those who died, John Atkinson, could have survived if the emergency services response had been better. It also highlighted a series of failures by the emergency services on the night of the attack. Mr Atkinson wasn’t tended to by any paramedics in the foyer where the bomb went off and his early care was left to former pizza shop boss Ronald Blake, who held a makeshift tourniquet fashioned from his wife's belt