Brent and Neil go to Manchester - Part 2

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I have not received any encouragement or inducement from anyone to write about or discuss any information related to the Manchester Attack. All research discussed is exclusively my own and based solely upon information freely available in the public domain.

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Brent Lee and Neil Sanders have released their 8 part exploration of Richard D. Hall's Book and film called Manchester The Night of the Bang. You can download Richard's book For Free Here.

If you would like to support Richard's work you can also buy his Book HERE and HERE. If you wish, you can donate to support his ongoing legal battle HERE.

Before every Episode, Brent and Neil warn their listeners they will be discussing distressing material. I will be discussing the same and will include distressing images and video. Please do not read these articles if you are not prepared to consider such material.

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In Part 1 we noted, with some of the evidence Hall reported conspicuously omitted, Brent and Neil have mostly relayed Hall's analysis to their audience to this point. The so-called "debunking" unfolds as the series progresses. The exploration of Hall's hoax theory continues in Episode 2.

Neil Sanders reports that Hall cited the work of former MI5 agent and author David Shayler (a.k.a Delores Kane) which strongly suggested that Salman Abedi was a likely asset of the intelligence agencies. As I have discussed previously there is a wealth of evidence to support this contention. Brent and Neil concede that Salman Abedi's father, as revealed by Shayler (Kane), was a known intelligence asset and that Salman and his family lived in a Libyan terrorist community that was settled in Manchester by the UK government.

As reported by the Telegraph:

A group of Gaddafi dissidents, who were members of the outlawed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), lived within close proximity to Abedi in Whalley Range. Among them was Abd al-Baset Azzouz, who left Britain to run a terrorist network in Libya [. . .] Azzouz, 48, an expert bomb-maker, was accused of running an al-Qaeda network in eastern Libya. The Telegraph reported in 2014 that Azzouz had 200 to 300 militants under his control and was an expert in bomb-making.

We are informed by the Guardian that intelligence sources revealed Abedi was reportedly close to the expert bomb maker Abd al-Baset Azzouz. By the age of 22, Abedi was a trained terrorist, known to the British intelligence agencies, with close links to an notorious bomb maker who schooled terrorists in Libya. Salman Abedi regularly flew between the UK and Libya. In 2017, it seems possible, if not likely, that few people in the UK knew more about bomb making than Salman Abedi.

Brent and Neil state that Hall revealed police accounts of eyewitness statements reporting a man, matching Abedi's precise physical description, fleeing the Arena. They agree with Hall that the police also pursued an Asian male who was seen by witnesses to arrive at the Arena in a grey Audi, registration number FV05OPO. This grey Audi A6 has a slightly unusual history.

A UK DVLA search shows that the grey Audi A6 was MOT'd until 2019 before being SORN'd. The Audi was MOT'd in January 2010 and then MOT'd again, just 7 months later, in August 2010. Perhaps suggesting a sale or transfer of keeper. At the same time there was an apparent number plate change. The previous registration was reportedly S80JCH.

Since 2001, all UK registered number plates begin with two letters. This suggests the Audi was possibly not originally registered in the UK. However an import check for the Audi shows no record to indicate it was imported. S80JCH may have been a private number plate that the keeper of the Audi sold in 2010 . That said, I could find no DVLA record of S80JCH being a registered private plate.

Reportedly the Asian male took a large rucksack out of the boot of the Audi, put it on his back and ran toward the Arena. Lee and Sanders acknowledge that, as reported by Hall, the police apparently pursued the Audi and arrested the driver at gunpoint.

Armed stop of the grey Audi

Sanders then explains that Hall accurately reports the official investigation's determination that the alleged explosive used was TATP (triacetone triperoxide). TATP is an entropic explosive that emits neither light nor heat when it detonates. Upon explosive decomposition, nearly all energy is transferred into an audible shock wave.

The "debunkers" also agree with Hall that there are numerous apparently contradictory eyewitness accounts of bright flashes, fireballs and intense heat emanating from the explosion. This includes verified dash cam footage showing the bright flash when the device detonated. This is not consistent with a TATP bomb.

Although he won't mention that these contradictory accounts were not examined in any depth during the official Saunders Inquiry, Neil Sanders will later claim to have "debunked" the contradictory eyewitness evidence. Not very convincingly, it has to be said.

Sanders also reports the witness statement, again reported by Hall, from a member of the Arena road crew who said that armed police arrived very quickly after the bang. Crucially, this alleged arrival time was so close to the stated time of the bombing, Hall concluded armed police were close to or present at the Arena prior to the bang.

Hall wrote:

We know from the testimony of the roadie that eight armed police were inside the arena within 1 minute. If they moved to secure the foyer they would have reached the foyer within 90 seconds of the bang. Numerous people reported seeing armed police. People noted that they did not help ‘victims’ and were concerned only with securing the area.

Neil Sanders next discusses the Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) data on the Parker photo. As reported by Hall, this apparent EXIF data suggested the image, seemingly showing the aftermath in the City Room, was taken in the morning before the bomb allegedly detonated. The presumed EXIF data recorded image capture at 07:11:18 on the 22nd. Sanders will go on to convincingly account for this and resolves the apparent anomaly.

Sanders them claimed that this so-called EXIF data forms "the crux" of Hall's theory about Manchester Arena. This means that Sanders asserts Hall's reporting of the EXIF data is "the most important or serious part" of his Manchester Arena hoax theory. That claim is false.

All of the evidence combined led Hall to propose his theory about what happened that night. The contradictory witness statements, the dearth of physical evidence, the lack of CCTV or photographic evidence, the presumed EXIF data, the police radio chatter and much more evidence besides, led Hall to his conclusion. By claiming the EXIF data is "the crux" of Hall's theory, Brent and Neil appear to be constructing a strawman argument.

Nonetheless, halfway through Part 2 of Brent and Neil go to Manchester the pair have reported some of the evidence presented by Hall that casts significant doubt on the official narrative of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Brent and Neil, and their guest Joel Hill, then move on to discuss by far the most contentious aspect of Hall's theory and his investigation.

If the Manchester Arena bombing was hoaxed it infers that no one was killed or injured in the City Room by a shrapnel laden suicide bomb detonated by Salman Abedi at approximately 22.31 on the night of 17th May 2017.

It is important to appreciate that this is Hall's specific allegation. In Manchester The Night of the Bang, Hall explicitly stated:

There are no publicly available photographs that I have been able to find, taken by concert goers which show any of the deceased victims, taken after the bang (either dead or alive), and situated in or immediately outside the arena. [. . .] There is a lack of reliable photographs showing ‘deceased victims’ inside the arena, at the concert, or in the foyer [the City Room], either before or after their ‘death’. [. . .] I suspect that no deaths occurred in the foyer, and I also suspect that those who were designated ‘dead’ were not present in the foyer during the evening event.

Children were reportedly injured and murdered. Obviously, this narrative elicits powerful emotions among the public. But regardless of how we might feel about the reported murder and maiming of children and young people by a suicide bomber, if the evidence suggests that the bombing did not occur—and I am among many who agree with Hall that the evidence resoundingly supports that contention—then it is not immoral to try to find out what happened to those people.

Faced with this evidence, Hall took the next logical step and tried to account for the reports of the deaths and injuries. He wrote:

After researching information on all of the allegedly deceased people, I have theorised about how their deaths could have been fabricated, and what subsequently may have happened to the ‘victim’. The following is a list of possible general scenarios. These suggestions are stated as a hypothesis.

Hall hypothesised what "may have happened" to the 22 reportedly deceased victims of the bombing. Given that the evidence shows the official account is false, Hall offered "possible general scenarios" that he claimed may explain the reported deaths or indicate the possible fabrication of deaths.

As we discussed in the introduction, Sanders will go on to provide evidence demonstrating  that Hall's conjecture was error strewn. But this does not mean that Brent's and Neil's theory—that everything we are told about the victims is true—is correct.

As I believe you may come to appreciate, the evidence reported by Hall showing that Manchester was a staged terror event is overwhelming. This includes official accounts of deaths and injuries that evidently are not true. At this stage, let's just say there are discrepancies.

Throughout their analysis, Brent and Neil repeatedly use the logical fallacy of "appeal to emotion." They frequently portray empathy or sympathy for the purported victims as reason to accept the official account. This is not evidence. If you suspect the reports of deaths and injuries are wrong, or possibly deceptive, emotional distress won't help you find out what happened to the alleged victims.

Writing for Psychology Today, Noam Shpancer, PhD., professor of psychology at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, said:

Propaganda traffics mostly in emotions [. . .]. Emotional reaction precedes reasoned analysis [. . .]. We are more likely to act on a feeling without much thought than to act on a thought without much feeling. [. . .] Emotional reactions easily drown out and overtake intellectual analysis and fact-based reasoning. That’s the psychological edge exploited by the propagandist.

Appeal to emotion propaganda has been obsessively used by the legacy media to discredit Hall. In one of a litany of examples, the Daily Mail, with its history of reporting hoaxed terror attacks as if they were real, branded Hall "Britain’s sickest man."

They sold this ad hominem to their readers by smearing a large dollop of appeal to emotion propaganda on Hall:

But as she [Eve Hibbert - alleged Manchester Arena survivor] tried to recover from the horrors of May 22, the tragedy deepened when a twisted conspiracy theorist set out to prove she was lying about her injuries. [. . .] Hall horrifically visited Eve's home and set up a camera disguised in fake plant foliage which he planned to use to see whether she could walk. [. . .] The Hibberts were not the only Manchester victims that Hall visited as he embarked on a sick journey to try and catch them out.

This so-called "journalism" is pure propaganda and has absolutely no journalistic or intellectual value. For the remainder of our analysis of Brent and Neil go to Manchester, statements from either of them that deploy the same "appeal to emotion" and other propagandist fallacies, such as "appeal to authority," will be identified as the same propaganda techniques used by the legacy media to undermine and attack Hall without reason.

It is in Episode 2 that we are first introduced to Brent and Neil's analysis of the John Barr footage (see below). The only other footage we have from inside the City Room has unknown provenance and was shown in the BBC documentary "Manchester The Night of the Bomb" (apologies for the naming error in the video below). The BBC clip shown has no audio, but in the original the same warning siren, heard in the Barr footage, is audible.

The BBC video appears to show more debris than is seen the Barr footage, but the heavy blurring and poor video quality makes this difficult to establish. As we shall see, we cannot be certain when this debris was potentially "added."

Sanders states that Hall thought the Parker photo, which is the only officially acknowledged photograph taken inside the City Room, precisely matched the scene filmed in the 43 second Barr footage. Therefore, Hall theorised that the Barr footage was shot before the bang. Hall wrote: "John Barr’s phone camera has captured the same event as seen in the still image."

Hall interviewed Barr and asked him when the footage was shot. Barr reportedly said:

That was around er, after the explosion, probably about 2 or 3 minutes after the explosion. [. . .] the explosion was about 10.32, so that [filming] was probably about 4 minutes after that [the bang].

The same siren is also heard in other footage—audible in the video shown in Part 1. According to Mr Barr, this footage (above) was captured at the scene of a large-scale deadly terrorist attack, no more than 4 minutes after it occurred.

Despite evidently being a key witness in possession of vital observable physical evidence, Mr Barr was not invited to provide testimony to the official inquiry, and his video evidence was excluded from the proceedings. Brent and Neil don’t mention this. Instead they will go on to offer an implausible rationale to try to explain why no images have “ever” been seen. We’ll get to that in due course.

Personally, I think it is reasonable to ask why the both the Barr footage, and Mr Barr’s available witness testimony, were excluded from the inquiry?

I estimate that there are possibly 18 distinct prone figures blurred out in the BBC video. The heavy blurring and poor video quality doesn't provide us with much evidence. Going forward, we will focus on the Barr footage. The scene is much clearer although it does not encompass the wider view captured in the BBC footage.

Due to the seeming EXIF data of the Parker photo, Hall originally doubted Barr's account. There are temporary movable objects (a "bloody" cloth of some kind), with placement matched in both the Parker and the Barr footage. Consequently Hall deduced that the Barr footage was shot at approximately the same time as the Parker photo. At the time, he believed both were captured at approximately 07:11.

Hall has since revised his opinion about both the EXIF data in the Parker photo and the corresponding timing of the Barr Footage. If we go to the 30:07 mark in this Richplanet video—broadcast by Hall on 2nd June 2023—with regard to the Parker photograph and the Barr footage Hall states:

In my previous film, I suggested that these images (Parker photo and stills from the Barr footage) of the City Room were probably taken in the morning in some sort of drill or preparation. CCTV evidence, which has been released since I made that film, has led me to suspect that these images may have, in fact, been taken shortly after the time of the blast. The evidence is conflicting, as the timestamp on the Chris Parker image clearly shows a much earlier time. But I am going to go with the official narrative here, that these images were taken shortly after the blast. No building damage can be seen in this image. The merchandise stall is completely intact. Other images taken show that windows were not shattered by the blast. This image (Chris Parker photo) does not show convincing evidence of an injury or deaths. Although a firm conclusion cannot be drawn from these images alone, about whether the victims pictured are real or staged, the images are consistent with a drill or exercise. Now, the public inquiry did produce photographs showing building damage, for example to the blue and white doors seen in these pictures, However, none of that damage can be seen in these images, which were taken much earlier than the crime scene images produced in the inquiry. [emphasis added]

I am not sure exactly when Brent and Neil recorded their alleged "debunk" of the Manchester Arena theories offered by Richard D. Hall. All I know is that it was some time during 2023.

To be fair to Brent and Neil, they initially claimed they were analysing the information contained in Hall's original book and film which came out in 2020. Nonetheless, it is somewhat disingenuous to discuss what Hall "believes" without mentioning the revisions he has made to his theories. Hall has changed his view as a result of the further evidence provided by the official Saunders Inquiry which Hall has also covered in detail.

Neil Sanders discusses Halls hypothesis, put forward in the book, that the light seen coming through the glass doors to the Arena walkway—seen in the Barr footage stills (below)—was daylight.

This does not correspond to the 22:31 timing Hall currently reports. Brent and Neil could have informed their audience of this fact, but evidently chose not to.

Sanders observes that pages 68 - 406 of Hall's original book is devoted to statement analysis of the reported survivors and witnesses. We'll discuss this in future parts of this series, but suffice to say Brent and Neil correctly report the bulk of Hall's book used statement analysis (SA).

Sanders notes that, in his original video, Hall said "statements from witnesses commenting on those who were dead or dying is severely lacking." Sanders, criticises Hall for what he considers Hall's insensitivity after Hall referred to the dead as "the dead."

Sanders exhibits the same alleged insensitivity himself by adding:

There's a reason why you've not got statements from the dead. But let's not split hairs at this point.

This is a facetious comment, intended to ridicule Hall, but it does not comport with Hall's statement.

Brent and Neil then turn their attention to the generalised hypothesis offered by Hall regarding what may have happened to the deceased. With a considerable degree of incredulity, Sanders discusses the various components Hall's "general scenarios" that he offered to potentially account the "victims" of a bombing that, for reasons we will explore, evidently did not happen.

We have already discussed and seen examples of hoaxed terror events and the use of crisis actors. It is also worth noting that potentially hiding the whereabouts of 22 people is not something law enforcement or the intelligence would find particularly difficult. Just three years prior to the alleged Manchester bombing an estimated 3,000 people were reportedly in UK witness protection programmes. There location, former names and identities were not know to anyone except their immediate protection officers.

Run by the UK National Crimes Agency, the UK Protected Persons Service (UKPPS) explains how it operates:

[UKPPS] would usually involve removing people from the area of threat to a new, safe location. Regional protected persons units will then work with the individual to keep this location discreet and rebuild lives in the new area. To do this we need the cooperation and collaboration of the person at risk. Protected Persons Units work discreetly and with a large degree of secrecy. [. . .] Protected Persons Units have dealt with thousands of cases in the last 20 years or so. Protected persons quietly get on with their new lives in the knowledge that they are supported by the authorities, and safe in their new locations.

Brent and Neil dismiss this possibility in Episode 2. Why Brent and Neil find it impossible to believe that 22 people could have been "secretly" hidden, perhaps by the intelligence agencies, is hard to say. This is perfectly plausible and a relatively common practice for the authorities.

We then arrive at the appeal to emotion propaganda favoured by Brent and Neil. Sanders states:

Essentially, he [Hall] is accusing bereaved parents of lying about their dead children for money.

This is an extremely pejorative and seemingly unwarranted interpretation of Hall's statements, nearly all of which, in regard to what may have happened to the deceased victims, were framed as questions. In Manchester the Night of the Bang, Hall wrote:

I will also point out here that if participants have lied in their media interviews, due to being subject to an agreement, they may believe that what they are doing is ethically justified. They may have been given reasons by the organisers why a mock exercise was necessary. If I or the statement analyst forms an opinion that participants have made false statements in their interviews, we are not making a moral judgement about whether that person should or should not have lied. We are not making any accusation that the participants have done ‘wrong’ or broken the law. We are just expressing an opinion based on available evidence about whether we believe what they said is true or false. It is perfectly legal to have an opinion about whether somebody is telling the truth. And it is perfectly legal to express that opinion.

It is currently legal to express such an opinion. However, Martin Hibbert, one of the purported Manchester Arena victims—off the back of the case he has brought against Hall—is pushing for a "law" to make questioning reported survivors of claimed terrorist attacks illegal [go to 21.08 in this Richplanet video]. He evidently has significant support from the political class, the judiciary and the legacy media to create the proposed "law."

Hall undoubtedly investigated some extremely sensitive issues, but not without good reason. As noted in his book, he seemingly anticipated the nature of allegations that would be levelled against him by people like Lee and Sanders.

Brent and Neil, by relying upon appeal to emotion propaganda techniques, have attempted to deny logical, evidence based inquiry, based upon nothing but the emotional distress it may cause. If such a derisory proposition were accepted by the public, it would render any journalist's investigation of murder practically impossible.

At this stage of our appraisal of Brent and Neil go to Manchester, deception and propaganda are becoming thematic. That suspicion deepens when Sanders turns his attention to the footage of Ruth Murrell—the woman strolling across the scene in the Barr footage shown above. Brent and Neil are presenting an audio podcast which is just as well because what Sanders then claims is not supported by the video evidence we can see:

He [Hall] points towards one particular lady called Ruth Murrell [. . .]. She's the woman seen in the John Barr video walking past, and she's got a great big hole in her thigh, with blood coming down it, but she seems to be walking unimpinged.

What Brent's and Neil's audience cannot see is that there is no evidence in the Barr footage that Ruth Murrell has a "great big hole in her thigh." In fact, the evidence in the Barr footage initially appears to contradict that claim. While Murrell has a red stain on her jeans, to claim this is blood is to assume that she was injured as reported and the evidence does not support that claim. We will discuss why it doesn't over the next few days. Brent's and Neil's listeners have no way of knowing this.

Sanders then moves into rank deception. Brent, Neil and their guest Joel Hill, scoff at Hall for asking about Martin Hibbert's stated intention to complete the Great North Run. Obviously, they chortle, he was doing so in his wheelchair. As Hall makes abundantly clear in his book:

Hibbert announced in December 2019 that he will be walking the Great North Run, a half marathon. [emphasis added]

Martin Hibbert was undergoing experimental treatment in Australia in 2019. Hoping he would walk again, he ultimately did not regain full use of his legs and completed the half marathon in his wheelchair. Having already misled their audience about Hall's statements on numerous occasions, Brent and Neil step things up a notch by claiming that Hall is getting into "bat shit areas" because he questions the accounts of the reported survivors.

Up to the end of Episode 2, Brent and Neil have reported many of Hall's reasons for doubting the veracity of the official account of the Manchester Arena bombing. Thus far, they have primarily challenged Hall's use of statement analysis and his various ventured hypothesis about what "general scenarios" may account for the deceased victims.

After more than an hour of not saying much, presumably the "debunking"—which is what the whole podcast series promises to its listeners—will be revealed at some point.

Let's move on to Episodes 3 and 4 of Brent and Neil go to Manchester. Part 3 will be available tomorrow, here on Substack.