Patrick Christys: We’re a laughing stock among the jihadi community

The brother of the Manchester suicide bomber has been allowed to flee the country.

Ismail Abedi was supposed to giving evidence at in inquiry into the terror attack but somehow managed to escape Britain and, indeed, justice.

Ismail’s brother, Salman, detonated a rucksack full of explosives inside the foyer at the Manchester Arena after an Ariana Grande concert – basically, he tried to eviscerate a room full of children. 22 people died, dozens more were injured – the whole thing was absolutely horrific.

I’ve been in that arena loads of times, I’ve been a child stood in that very foyer leaving a concert at that Arena and the whole thing seemed eerily close to home.

After the attack Ismail was arrested and police found a disc drive at his flat in Manchester which included images of burned bodies and one depicting the black flag adopted by ISIS and the words: "I pledge allegiance."

Ismail was also connected by forensic evidence to an item later found in the Nissan Micra that his brothers used to transport and store the chemicals that made the bomb.

So, basically, you don’t have to be Poirot to figure out that there’s a strong indication that he might have been involved and that he’s an extremist himself.

Now I would have thought we’d keep this guy under lock and key, that we’d be all over him like a rash, that we’d be so desperate to get justice for the 22 people killed that we’d do everything we can to make sure he turns up to this inquiry and faces questions.

What happened? Well he asked to be immune from prosecution if he attended, bit of a red flag to begin with, we said no.

So then we, in true British style, handed him a piece of paper called a section 21 order, that basically says if you don’t turn up to the inquiry then you’re a very naughty boy – hey, we might even fine you.

It’s the most useless piece of paper since Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler. He’s gone, he’s obviously not coming back, and there we have it – another one slips through the net.

It looks like we can’t secure our borders on the way in or the way out. I think terrorists are laughing at us and that makes me incredibly angry. I think they think we’re a joke.

I think we’re a laughing stock among the jihadi community.

We let people down on that fateful night, the bomb went off and the emergency services were too afraid of a second device to actually attend to the wounded and indeed pretty much just one paramedic was left to deal with the whole thing.

People died as a result of that. But now we’re letting them down again. How on earth was Ismail Abedi allowed to flee this country.

We don’t appear to know where he is, we don’t appear to know how he got out.

It all looks a bit suspect if you ask me, especially considering that we managed to arrest one of his mates at the border when he also tried to flee.

It’s absolutely repulsive that Ismail Abedi is now free to live his life in peace, his brother’s 22 victims don’t have that luxury.