Manchester Arena inquiry: Father of Ariana Grande ‘superfan’ hopes suicide bomber ‘rots in the darkest part of hell’

The father of a teenager who was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing has told the inquiry he hopes her killer “rots in the deepest darkest part of hell”.

Ariana Grande “superfan” Georgina Callander, 18, from Hesketh Bank, died in the blast that killed 22 others in May 2017.

Yesterday, the Manchester Arena inquiry heard how the teenager was placed on an advertising board and carried out of the arena foyer after the explosion. Her mother Lesley encountered her being moved away from the scene.

The teenager died around midnight in hospital.

Today, her father Simon Callander called suicide bomber Salman Abedi an “evil person”.

He told the inquiry: “All that potential snatched away by an evil person who didn’t even know or care about my little girl, a person who didn’t know what a very special person he was about to murder.

“I hope he rots in the deepest, darkest part of hell. I’m so proud to stand here and say that I’m Georgina’s dad.”

Mr Callander said Georgina was born on April Fool’s Day, but told the inquiry that “he was the fool” for “not spending more time with her and telling her I loved her every day”.

Images of Georgina as a baby were shown as he continued the tribute.

He described his daughter as “the glue that held our family together, as happy a little girl as ever there has been born”.

Georgina had a place at university to study paediatrics and planned to work with premature babies. She had just passed her driving test before the attack and had driven to the concert in a new car she nicknamed Peggy.

Describing the pain of losing his daughter, Mr Callander said: “Every day I hear that laugh it’s like she’s still here. To this day I stand in the window looking for her, looking down the road after school.

“Sometimes other school kids remind me of her for a second, but no, it’s not my Georgina.”

He added: “She changed my life and I will never get over losing her. Her smile lasted forever, a smile I can picture every day but her laughter that echoed all over the house is gone.

“For me, my life has changed so much, my life is unrecognisable from what it was. A massive hole is left. Ill health, divorce, a black cloud follows me constantly.

“Sometimes I feel like it’s going to swallow me up.”

The parents of a teenage couple who were killed alongside each other have paid them a joint tribute, saying they “came into this world with nothing but have left it with nothing but love.”

Chloe Rutherford, 17, and Liam Curry, 19, from Gateshead, travelled to Manchester for the Ariana Grande concert after her parents gave her tickets for Christmas.

An emotional tribute was read to the inquiry by Caroline Curry, Liam’s mother, and Mark Rutherford, Chloe’s father, which they described as their children’s “love story”.

Mr Rutherford said that at 17 and 19 they had “so much living to be done, so much life and so much love to share”.

“All the stories still to tell and all the dreams not yet dreamt,” he added.

Mrs Curry said: “Chloe and Liam had it all worked out in twos – in two years they would have saved up the deposit for a flat, another two years and they would hope to be married.

“We have been sharing a love story about two bairns who fell in love, two beautiful people with so much love in their hearts and so much hope for their lives together.

“They wanted to be together for ever and now they are.”

Chloe was studying music performance at Newcastle College, and also waiting tables in a pub called the White Horse, when she died.

Liam, a keen cricketer and left-handed batsman, was studying sport science at university and working as a cocktail barman at the Hilton in Gateshead.

His father was diagnosed with lymphoma blood cancer and died in March 2017

“Chloe was at Liam’s side to support him to take those first tentative steps without the dad that he loved by his side,” Mrs Curry said.

“Liam was there to provide strength and love to me and his family. He was the man of the house for his family.”

But, she added: “Only eight weeks later evil ripped out our family’s hearts and stole my baby boy.

“There are not enough words to describe the pain I feel, an unbearable pain that has no ending. There is no relief, no break, no calm, only a searing pain that won’t ever recover.

Mrs Curry told the inquiry: “How do we make the world turn again how do you mend our shattered hearts? The truth is you can’t.

“Grief moves at its own pace, winds and winds until it empties itself into a calm sea, but not yet for us.

“We have been sharing a love story about two bairns who fell in love, two beautiful people with so much love in their hearts and so much hope for their lives together.

“Chloe and Liam came into this world with nothing but have left it with nothing but love. They remain part of our lives always.

(c) Sky News 2020: Manchester Arena inquiry: Father of Ariana Grande ‘superfan’ hopes suicide bomber ‘rots in the darkest part of hell’