'I don't think it will ever be the same'

CORDONS HAVE GONE AT SYNAGOGUE BUT HORROR REMAINS

- By CHRIS SLATER

IN the shadow of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, life has begun to get back to 'normal.

The huge police cordon, which had been in place since the horrifying terror attack on Thursday morning, has been all but removed.

Those evacuated have been allowed back into their homes.

The shops, facing it, opened their shutters for the first time on Monday. There was a steady flow of people visiting State Fayre, the city's oldest Kosher bakery.

Yet things couldn't have felt less normal. For many in these parts, life will quite simply never be quite the same again.

More than half a dozen police officers stood guard outside the synagogue gates. An ever expanding array of flowers and other tributes line the front wall, as they do at either end of what was the cordon, at the junctions with Brooklands Road and Crumpsall Lane.

As well as police vans, TV trucks lined the road opposite the synagogue with broadcasters stood in front of a line of cameras, giving regular updates on the fallout from the tragedy. "Every time I look at it, I want to cry," said Esther Aronson, 39. "To think that someone could do such a horrendous thing."

Esther was one of those evacuated from her home whilst a suspicious device on the assailant, Jihad Al-Shamie, which later turned out to be fake, was assessed and whilst detectives then carried out painstaking enquiries.

She and her husband were allowed to return home on Saturday night. "It was a long time not be in your own place, at such an upsetting time as well," she said. She said she felt 'relieved' to be back home but still very 'insecure'.