Arena bombing survivor tells High Court being trolled is ‘exhausting’

A survivor of the Manchester Arena attack has said being trolled is “exhausting” in a High Court case over alleged harassment by a “conspiracy theorist”.

Martin and Eve Hibbert are suing self-described journalist Richard Hall for harassment and data protection at the London court over several videos and a book in which Mr Hall has made claims that the bombing was a “hoax”.

The father and daughter were at the Ariana Grande concert in May 2017 and suffered life-changing injuries, with Mr Hibbert sustaining a spinal cord injury and Miss Hibbert severe brain damage.

Five years of (this trolling), it would bring anybody down. It is just hard all the time, are they outside my house, are they here today, are they watching Eve when she goes to school? What that does mentally is exhausting

But Mr Hall has claimed that the attack, in which Salman Abedi detonated a homemade rucksack-bomb in the crowd of concert-goers, was faked by government agencies with “crisis actors” used.

Defending the legal case, lawyers for Mr Hall said his actions were “pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime”.

Giving evidence on Monday afternoon, Mr Hibbert said that he initially did “brush it off” when he was told about Mr Hall’s videos and received social media notifications from multiple people, telling the court: “I didn’t want to be brought down by this conspiracy theorist.”

But he said that between 2018 and 2022, the “trolling, those notifications, got worse and worse and more and more” from people on social media.

He continued: “Five years of that, it would bring anybody down.

“It is just hard all the time, are they outside my house, are they here today, are they watching Eve when she goes to school?

“What that does mentally is exhausting.”

The court previously heard that around September 2019, Mr Hall filmed Miss Hibbert and her mother outside their house.

Mr Hall said he had deleted the footage, with his barrister Paul Oakley telling the court in written submissions that it was filmed from a public highway and never published.

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

The court was later told that an anonymous letter was sent to Mr Hibbert’s physiotherapist, claiming he was protected by “dark forces”.

Mr Hibbert said: “For someone to do that, to go to those lengths, it’s scary to me.”

He continued: “All of this is from Mr Hall’s videos … If he can do that, what else could he do? What else could his followers do?”

Mr Oakley said that Mr Hibbert had not reported any concerns to the police.

He later suggested that some of the attention had “been stirred up by the perfectly legitimate decision to bring this matter to court”.

The barrister also referenced Mr Hibbert’s autobiography, which has been serialised by the Daily Mail newspaper, saying that he had made “private” details about Miss Hibbert public.

Mr Hibbert said: “I’m her dad, I’m her father, I’m not a stranger, I was there with her that night.

“We didn’t want people who don’t have the authorisation or the need to do it, to talk about Eve, when they don’t have the facts.”

Mr Oakley later said: “When you put the information out there, you have no control – you can’t authorise people’s thoughts about Eve, having put that information into the public domain.”

Earlier on Monday, the barrister said Mr Hall was “entirely entitled” to have his views about the attack, 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.”

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