A man has been arrested after complaints about somebody appearing on social media wearing a Halloween costume depicting Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.
Abedi killed 22 people as well as himself when he detonated a bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at the arena in May 2017.
Pictures of a man wearing an Arabic-style headdress, with the slogan “I love Ariana Grande” on his T-shirt, and carrying a rucksack with “Boom” and “TNT” written on the front, caused fury when they were posted earlier this week.
I get that it’s offensive, I truly do, but I don’t think people should be arrested just for being offensive. If he was threatening to do something similar or something like that, then that’s different.
It’s a difficult one for the police - sending offensive communications is an offence, and this counts as one, so they are duty-bound to investigate it. As unpleasant as it is, I hope it goes no further.