Manchester Arena bombing victim sufferered for an hour before she died (2025)

When Andrew Roussos was renovating this house – part of the impossible process of rebuilding his family's life – he took a sledgehammer to some internal walls.

The result is a beautiful, light-filled family room, which incorporates the kitchen and living area, and where the TV (which is on at the moment, sound turned down) can be seen from the island unit. This was a place built on anger and pain, however.

'It was therapy,' says Andrew, 51, mimicking the sledgehammer swing and how he went at it like a madman. 'It was at the time of the inquiry so there was a lot of frustration there.'

He means the public inquiry into the terror attack at Manchester Arena in 2017, which claimed 22 lives – mostly young people filing out of an Ariana Grande concert, singing and dancing as they went.

The youngest victim was Andrew's daughter Saffie-Rose, who was just eight, and fearless, the sort of kid who 'did backflips off the sofa and would talk to anyone,' he says.

Her picture is everywhere in this house, dimples on display, but Andrew finds it hard to look too closely into her eyes. 'I can't look at her. I mean, she's with us, she's here, she's our oxygen, but to actually look her in the face, I don't do that.'

For years Andrew and his wife Lisa had thought that their 'beautiful, perfect girl', who was standing just five metres from the suicide bomber Salman Abedi as he detonated the device in his backpack, had died instantly and painlessly.

That was not the case.

They've since learned she survived for 69 minutes, and that opportunities to save her had been missed. They learned things no parent should ever have to process. Not only had Saffie been conscious towards the end, but she had asked for her mum. Her last recorded words, in the ambulance, were: 'Am I going to die?'

They also learned that the brothers who plotted this most unthinkably evil attack had been known to MI5. In a rare public statement, the MI5 director-general Ken McCallum said: 'I am profoundly sorry that MI5 did not prevent the attack.'

Andrew and Lisa, 56, have now co-written an extraordinary book about their little girl, and their fight for justice on Saffie's behalf. They still believe the authorities have 'blood on their hands', although they accept that they have reached the end of the road in terms of being able to take further legal action. An attempt to sue MI5 last year failed, 'because too much time had passed since the bombing. Never mind that we hadn't been aware of half of the facts until the inquiry'.

It would be easier, Andrew tells me, to be able to pin all the blame on the evil, psychotic killer, Salman Abedi, and his equally cruel brother Hashem, but 'it's way more complicated than that'.

That much is underlined when, halfway through our interview, the face of Hashem Abedi flashes up on that TV on the wall. Abedi, who is serving a minimum of 55 years for 22 murders – Saffie's included – has been in the news after attacking prison officers at HMP Frankland in Co. Durham, stabbing two with makeshift knives and hurling hot oil over a third.

The natural reaction for any father would presumably be to reach for that old sledgehammer and hurl it at the TV, but Andrew has been so shocked, so 'let down by the system', as he puts it, that he has gone beyond that. He almost shrugs at this 'latest madness'.

'I mean, it is crazy,' he says. 'It's crackers. How does a man like that get access to A, B and C, whatever it is, to allow him to make knives? He's able to be there with a pan of hot butter? On what planet is that... I mean, you can't even get your head around it.'

The irony, too. Before the bomb, Andrew and Lisa ran a fish and chip shop in Lancashire. They had to close the doors on the business and start anew, but they know all about hot oil and kitchens and health and safety legislation, and their minds are simply blown that 'in supposedly the most secure prison when you are dealing with someone who is serving 55 years, so has nothing to lose' this can have happened.

I ask what is going round his head at this moment, with Abedi's face larger than life in this room, dwarfing all the images of little Saffie.

'This may sound mad, but I don't feel anything towards him. I don't blame him... them. These people are what they are: extremists, murderers. We shouldn't be surprised when they try to maim and kill. It's like getting a dog then being surprised when it barks.

'But I do blame the authorities, because it is their job to stop them. I blame the system for letting these people do what they did – and what they are still doing, even when they are inside and supposedly in the most secure prison possible.

'The softer you are, the more they walk all over you. They [the authorities] were soft from the start – they had the intelligence on these guys, and still they let them slip through the net.'

He questions now much of a net there actually is, given how much has slipped through. 'Oh, there will be an inquiry now. Of course there will. That phrase 'lessons will be learned' will be trotted out. Bull***t.'

Lisa is a quieter soul than her husband, but she is struggling to make sense of this too. Until now she has refused to dwell too much on the brothers who killed her baby girl. 'I never allow them into my head,' she says, turning her back on the TV.

'I refuse to give them my thoughts. But I do believe that it's wrong to let all these extremists live together and talk together in prison. They must be having a great time, being fed and watered and allowed to hang out together.'

There is the same resignation from her, though. Too many times have this couple had to listen to half-apologies about mistakes being made.

During this interview they reel off some of them: the fact that ambulance crews were held back from the site where their child was dying; the fact there wasn't a single stretcher available in a major British venue, at a time when the terror threat level was high; the fact that Abedi was able to get on a plane to Libya even after the attack. There is such a terrible catalogue of system failings that this latest twist of the knife barely impacts.

'From the moment the bomb was detonated – in fact even before it, given what MI5 knew – it has been a complete shambles with one thing after another. So many mistakes were made. So many times people say, 'That shouldn't have happened'. Now this. If you made it up, people would say it was too far-fetched,' says Lisa.

'But it's another example of feeling that you are just in the middle of this big thing that you don't understand and that you can't control. It's scary, to be honest. You go through life thinking people in authority know what they are doing, that they know how to keep everyone safe. They don't, and that is terrifying.'

It's interesting that they haven't been among the victims' families who have demanded answers this week, or openly expressed their outrage, because Andrew has never been a man to hold back.

At the inquiry, he railed against the 'clever people' with their big words, 'who apologise but only to the point where you can't sue them'.

You don't get that sense from him today, which perhaps makes this situation even sadder.

'You run out of steam trying to hold people to account. I'm tired of shouting. What is the point? It won't bring Saffie back and nothing changes anyway. Lessons learned? You can't beat the system.'

He has run out of words, so sticks two fingers up at the world, done with being the man who does and says the right thing.

His exasperation is palpable. 'But I don't want this. Some days I think I want to leave the country completely, go over to Cyprus, sit on a beach, drink vodka, put the roof down on the car, take my wife for a cheap meal.'

Lisa gives him a dig, ribs him about the 'cheap' there, and they manage to laugh.

How this couple – hardworking, decent, ordinary – are still standing is beyond comprehension. In Lisa's case, this applies literally as well as metaphorically.

The bombers who killed Saffie also left Lisa – who had taken her to the concert – in a coma for two weeks, with 126 pieces of shrapnel embedded in her body.

Such were her injuries that she was given a 15 per cent chance of survival. There was a 90 per cent chance that she would never walk again, and she still struggles with stairs today. Hence the fact that this lovely home, which they have called Saffie-Rose, is a bungalow.

It is situated in rural Dorset, pretty much as far as they could flee from their previous home in Leyland, Lancashire, 'and all its memories', while still being able to access medical care for Lisa.

Saffie's bedroom came too, in the move. They pretty much recreated her room here, and are happy to show me. 'It's not a shrine,' says Lisa, explaining that she and Andrew pop in and out all the time, adding little trinkets they have bought for Saffie, and using the wardrobe for their own things.

The sense of love and loss in this room is overwhelming. Saffie's pink slippers sit at the side of her bed, as if she has just stepped out of them. Her straw hat is over the bed post, ready for summer adventures to come; her Ray-Bans are on a hook next to it. A cuddly Olaf, the snowman from Disney's Frozen, stands guard in the corner.

On the wall, the most treasured family portrait ever has been preserved behind glass. In a line stand chunky felt-tipped versions of Daddy, Mummy, Xander, 'Me Saffie' and Binky the dog.

By chance a picture was taken on the night of the bombing showing Andrew and Saffie's brother Xander, who was then 11 years old, outside Manchester Arena. Xander has Binky, the family chihuahua, in his arms.

They had been there to collect Lisa, Saffie and her sister Ashlee (Lisa's 25-year-old daughter from a previous marriage) after the Ariana Grande concert. They heard the explosion that ripped their lives apart, and Andrew's memory of the desperate scrabble to find his family is all too vivid.

He and Xander came across Ashlee – hurt but still conscious and able to talk, lying on the ground. There was no sign of Lisa or Saffie, and Andrew spent that entire night driving to different hospitals in search of his wife and child. 'You know when you are watching a horror film? It was like that – but knowing that you are in it.'

He didn't discover that Saffie had died until midday the following day; by then the doctors had told him that it was likely Lisa, who had been placed in a medically induced coma, would die too.

They talk about the moment she woke up – to every mother's worst nightmare. 'I said 'Saffie's gone, isn't she?' and Andrew said 'Yes'.' At that moment she wanted to die, too. 'I asked 'Why did you wake me up? Why didn't you let me die?'. I wanted to die.'

There have been many times since where they have both wanted to remove themselves from this world. 'We talked about it,' says Andrew. 'As awful as this sounds, I do believe that, in an ideal world, you would do that. If you lose a child, you'd say 'Let's just go', because you know the pain will be too great, but also because you don't know where they are. Did Saffie need us?

'But we had an 11-year-old son. What about Xander? He was dealing with enough, without us topping ourselves. But, believe me, we thought about it.'

It has been Xander who has pulled them through. He is 19 now. 'That lad became a man. He and Saffie were inseparable but very different – she was fearless and he was more timid. But he's become the fearless one now.' They also have a granddaughter, Ashlee's four-year-old daughter Ever-Rose – named after her aunt – who is a regular visitor. 'She had Saffie's slippers on the other day,' laughs Lisa.

The couple say the process of writing the book, with investigative journalist David Collins, was often painful. There is one chapter, a meticulous, almost minute-by-minute account of the last hour of Saffie's life that documents the heroic efforts of the off-duty nurse who stayed with Saffie as she was dying, holding her head back to keep her airway open, saying 'That's it, gorgeous girl. You stay. You stay'.

This was too much for Lisa. 'David and Andrew did that chapter on their own. I couldn't. I haven't read it.'

Andrew is wiping his eyes. To this day he knows more than his wife about how Saffie died. 'And it's still just unbearable. You might know it all, but when you see it, all the timings, everything that happened, all the mistakes that were made, written down… But as we were doing that chapter, I told myself that, however painful this is for me, it would have been worse for Saffie.'

In some ways their book raises more questions than it answers, particularly about the role of MI5. But it is also an astonishing love letter to Saffie, and an acknowledgement that her death touched us all.

King Charles, then Prince Charles, was among those who wrote to the couple, directly referencing his own family's suffering at the hands of terrorists. 'I cannot bear it for you that such a heartbreaking tragedy should have been inflicted upon you so cruelly, and in such a barbarous manner,' he wrote.

'I well remember when my much-loved great uncle, Lord Mountbatten, and my godson were blown up by IRA terrorists. I can at least understand something of what you are going through.'

That meant the world to them. 'We have certainly seen the best of humanity, and the worst,' says Lisa.

Saffie has now been absent from the world for as long as she was in it, 'a milestone I was dreading', says Lisa. She would be 16 today. It's a mark of the sort of people Lisa and Andrew are that they asked all her school friends' parents to send them pictures of their own daughters in their prom dresses.

'We wanted to see them,' says Andrew. 'When we lost Saffie, we lost all her friends too. You want to celebrate those kids, even when it's hard.'

And hard it was. Lisa nearly bought Saffie a prom dress to hang in her room. 'I know some people would think that odd, but I wanted to do it, for Saffie, and for me.'

Why didn't she? 'I couldn't decide which colour and style she would like now. I know which one she would have picked when she was eight, but I couldn't be sure now. And then the moment passed.'

Saffie: The Youngest Victim Of The Manchester Terror Attack And Her Family's Fight For Justice, by David Collins, is published by Silvertail Books on April 24, at £12.99