TV producer tells court ‘millions of people have bought a lie’ as two Manchester Arena attack survivors sue him over claim attack was staged

A conspiracy theorist has claimed that ‘millions of people have bought a lie’ about the deadly Manchester Arena attack in 2017. 

Former TV producer Richard Hall claimed on his third day of a civil harrassment trial brought by two survivors that there was ‘no bomb’ in the attack that killed 22 and injured over a thousand. 

He also claimed that the public inquiry into the deadly attack at the Ariana Grande concert ‘ignored’ evidence. 

Hall is being sued for allegedly harassing father and daughter Martin and Eve Hibbert by ‘secretly filming’ Miss Hibbert and her mother at their house. 

The pair were at the Ariana Grande concert in May 2017 where Mr Hibbert sustained a spinal cord injury – leaving him paralysed – and Miss Hibbert was left with a ‘catastrophic’ brain injury.

However, Mr Hall, who said he has worked as a ‘fully independent investigative journalist’ since 2015 after careers as an engineer and television producer, said there is ‘no primary evidence of a bomb’.

He told the court: ‘There was no bomb in that room or genuinely injured people… The primary evidence shows there was no bomb in that room that exploded.’

Mr Hall later said that a ‘majority’ of people ‘believe a lie’ about the attack.

‘Millions of people have bought a lie,’ he said.

In his written evidence, Mr Hall claimed that a video was taken minutes after the blast, showing no damage to the building or broken glass.

Discussing the video, said to have been taken by a member of the public called John Barr, Mr Hall said: ‘There was no shrapnel visible. The lighting was intact and working. No injuries were visible.

‘The number of people in the room seemed far lower than officially claimed.

‘There are people lying on the ground, and some others apparently attending to them.

‘There is no sign of any urgent activity during this video of people rushing to attend to the purportedly dead and injured; no sign of tourniquets being applied, nor of any other activity consistent with an extremely serious major incident having just occurred.’

Mr Hall suggested that there was ‘very strong evidence that injuries were being staged in a faked ‘attack’.

Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured hundreds when he detonated the homemade rucksack-bomb in the crowd of concert-goers, with the Hibberts some of the nearest people to him at the time of the blast.

Abedi’s brother, Hashem Abedi, was jailed for life in August 2020 after he was convicted of assisting the terror plot.

The public inquiry into the atrocity began on September 7 2020 and ended on February 15 2022.

In its third report, published in March 2023, inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders concluded the attack might have been prevented if MI5 had acted on key intelligence received in the months prior.

Jonathan Price, for the Hibberts, asked Mr Hall why he would not ‘just believe’ the pair and Miss Hibbert’s mother Sarah Gillbard about the incident.

Mr Hall replied: ‘Because there is no evidence to show any of their claims.’

He later added ‘I’m presenting the evidence and letting people decide for themselves’, adding that his statements were ‘my opinion based on what I see’.

The barrister asked: ‘If it is true, and that is what they have been through, would you feel any compassion towards them?’

‘Well, of course, but it is not true,’ Mr Hall said, adding: ‘I feel compassion to anyone who suffers a life-changing injury which they clearly have.

‘Of course they do have life-changing injuries but I don’t accept that it happened at 10.21pm in the Manchester Arena.’

The barrister later asked Mr Hall why he believed it to be in the public interest to feature the Hibberts in his work.

Mr Hall replied: ‘There were many statements in the media but the primary evidence completely contradicted it… It was in the public interest to explore those witnesses.’

Mr Price suggested that Mr Hall’s work was ‘not rigorous journalism’ and ‘nothing but conjecture’.

But in his written evidence, Mr Hall described his book and films as featuring ‘nothing more than honest reporting and opinion’.

Yesterday, the High Court heard that the deadly attack Eve’s life in ‘every conceivable way’.

Hall, however, has claimed that the attack, in which Islamic extremist Salman Abedi detonated a home-made backpack bomb in the crowd of concert-goers, was faked by government agencies with ‘crisis actors’ used.

Mr Hall is being sued over several videos and a book in which he has made claims that the bombing was a ‘hoax’, as well as ‘secretly filming’ Eve and her mother at their house.

In a video shared online, Mr Hall demonstrated setting up a camera disguised in fake plant foliage which he planned to use to film Eve, now 21, to see whether she could walk.

He later claimed he left ‘a camera rolling’ in his van which was ‘parked in a public place’.

Mr Hall acknowledged in his video that Eve left the house in a wheelchair but added there was ‘no evidence’ her injury was from the bombing. 

Defending the outrageous claims, lawyers for Mr Hall said his actions were ‘pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime’ and that he has deleted the footage from outside the home.

On Monday, Mr Hibbert and Mr Hall appeared at the High Court for the first day of the trial, with around 20 members of the public watching the proceedings across two courtrooms.

Jonathan Price, for the Hibberts, said the pair were some of the closest to Abedi when he detonated the bomb and that the attack changed Mr Hibbert’s life ‘in every conceivable way’.

‘They have both suffered life-changing injuries from which they will never recover,’ the barrister said.

The court heard that Mr Hibbert received 22 wounds from shrapnel, and Miss Hibbert suffered a ‘catastrophic brain injury’ after a bolt from the bomb struck her in the head – leading to her being presumed dead at the scene.

Mr Price added: ‘Martin, paralysed, saw Eve lying next to him with a hole in her head and assumed he was watching her die, unable to help. He saw others lying dead or injured around him.’

He continued: ‘Mr Hall does not accept any of this. His theory is that it is an elaborate hoax.’

‘He doggedly adheres to the assertion that this attack did not happen and that we are all being fooled,’ Mr Price later said.

The barrister said Mr Hall has claimed Mr Hibbert is lying, and that Miss Hibbert was disabled before the bombing.

He continued: ‘Mr Hall says her parents are invoking their daughter’s catastrophic disability as part of a huge fraud on the general public.’

Paul Oakley, for Mr Hall, said his client is ‘entirely entitled’ to have his views, which were formed after he ‘scoured the public domain’.

He told the court: ‘My client is perfectly entitled to hold his views and he is willing to amend them if he is made aware of evidence to the contrary.’

In written submissions, Mr Oakley said Mr Hall and his beliefs have the right to freedom of expression.

He said: ‘However unpleasant Mr Hall’s published views are considered to be, they are protected.’

Mr Hibbert had made a ‘positive choice’ to co-operate with the media concerning the attack, the barrister later said.

‘As such, it is Mr Hibbert who has come to the ‘harassment’ and not the converse.’

The court was later told that, while there was one incident of filming, this was from a public highway and the footage was never published.

Mr Oakley continued: ‘It is submitted that this single incident would not be sufficient to found an action.’

The trial before Mrs Justice Steyn is due to conclude on Thursday with a decision expected in writing at a later date.