Man who detonated bomb outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital had 'grievance against British state'

A man who detonated a bomb outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital had a grievance against the British state, a police investigation has found.

Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, detonated the homemade device while sat in a taxi outside the hospital on the morning of November 14, 2021. Taxi driver David Perry managed to escape from the Ford Focus taxi following the explosion which killed Al Swealmeen.

The blast blew the car's front windscreen 16 metres, where it hit a tree, and damage was caused to the hospital building.

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Detective Superintendent Andy Meeks, of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, told a briefing on Monday it was believed Al Swealmeen intended to go into the hospital and detonate the device - however it likely exploded earlier than planned. He said there was no evidence anyone else was involved in the attack.

A police report on the investigation also found there was no evidence Al Swealmeen held extremist views.

It said: “It seems most likely that Al Swealmeen’s grievance against the British state for failing to accept his asylum claim compounded his mental ill health which in turn fed that grievance and ultimately a combination of those factors led him to undertake the attack.”

Mr Meeks said Al Swealmeen, who was born in Iraq, went to considerable lengths to stay in the country, including converting to Christianity, although the authenticity of his conversion was in doubt.

Al Swealmeen, who relocated from Iraq to Jordan in the 1990s, came to the UK in 2014, having applied for a visa in Abu Dhabi claiming he wanted to travel for a holiday and to watch the filming