AFTER THE EXPLOSION

Lisa Roussos was left fighting for her life after a terrorist detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017. But there was far worse to come – when she came out of a coma her husband, Andrew, had to tell her that their eight-year-old daughter, Saffie, had died in the attack. In this candid interview the couple reflect on that fateful night and their quest for justice

- DAVID COLLINS

THE sun was going down when Andrew Roussos locked up The Plaice, his fish and chip shop in Leyland, Lancashire, after a typically slow Monday. That night he was on pick-up duty. He got into his car with Xander, his 11-year-old son, and Binky, the family’s chihuahua, for the 50km drive to Manchester.

It was 22 May 2017 and American pop star Ariana Grande was on stage at the Manchester Arena. Andrew's wife, Lisa, had gone to the concert with their eight-year-old daughter, Saffie-Rose, and Ashlee, Lisa's 25-year-old daughter from another marriage.

Andrew arrived to find the traffic bumper to bumper. He parked and called Lisa, who said they were going to stay for the encore, a decision that haunts her eight years on.

“There are hundreds of moments that led us to that exact place at that exact time, from buying Saffie the tickets for her Christmas present to deciding to go on Monday night rather than Tuesday,” Lisa (56) says. “We could have left before the encore. We could have stopped to go into the toilets. If we had, our lives would have been so different”

Ariana Grande finished her final song of the encore, Dangerous Woman, and the family left their seats to walk through the arena’s busy corridors into the City Room, a foyer roughly the size of a basketball court.

Lisa never saw the sallow-eyed young man with a patchy beard walking straight towards them with a giant rucksack. She never saw him reach into the left-hand pocket of his black puffer jacket and press a trigger button attached to a bomb. Her last memory at that moment was of Saffie: her daughter with big brown eyes, dimples and full round cheeks, pulling her along by her hand, saying she wanted to find Daddy and Xander and tell them about the amazing concert. Then there was nothing.