A FORMER Bradford man horrifically injured in the Manchester Arena attack is preparing to take libel action against a conspiracy theorist who believes it was staged.

Martin Hibbert, who used to live in Wibsey, was left paralysed from the waist down when he and his teenage daughter Eve were among hundreds injured in the terror attack on May 22, 2017. 

He was just ten metres away from the bomb when it detonated and he suffered a T10 complete spinal injury.

A Panorama programme delved into the actions of conspiracy theorist Richard D Hall, who insists he has merely made "polite enquiries which have been within the law".

The programme 'Disaster Deniers: Hunting the Trolls', heard Hall claims to carry out independent investigations into major disasters, challenging the ‘mainstream media’.

Panorama showed a video shared online by Mr Hall and alleged he was demonstrating setting up a camera, which appears to be placed in a flowerbed, outside Eve’s house, who is now disabled and in a wheelchair, to see whether her injuries were real. Hall says he did not hide a camera outside somebody's home - but did leave a camera rolling inside his own vehicle which he says was parked in a public place.

Eve almost died in the attack, while Martin was left severely injured.  

Martin said: “I’m all for freedom of speech, but it crosses the line.

“When you’re saying I’m an actor or I’ve not got a spinal cord injury or Eve’s not disabled, she’s not in a wheelchair, this is not just a guy putting something on YouTube, he’s coming to where Eve lives, he’s found out where Eve lives, how’s he done that?”

Martin is now preparing to take libel action against Hall.

A message on Hall’s website says: “In response to recent media coverage, if any person is upset by what they have seen, Richard D. Hall apologises for any upset caused. My actions were motivated by a strong desire to search for the truth about what happened.”

It adds: “We do NOT advocate that viewers of this website make contact with alleged terror attack victims either online or in person.”

In a video posted in response to the BBC’s allegations, Mr Hall says he made some “polite door-to-door enquiries in order to gather evidence”.

He adds: “I did not hide cameras, or a camera, outside somebody’s home. I did consider placing a camera in a public place in order to gather evidence, which is portrayed in my film, however I decided against it and instead I left a camera rolling inside my own vehicle which was parked in a public place.”

In a lengthy statement he says: “My opinion is that to my knowledge, there has been no satisfactory evidence presented to the public which proves that the Manchester Arena incident was not staged.”

Hall says he’s not received any direct contact by any victim of the Manchester attack to complain about his actions and he had carried out “polite enquiries which have been within the law”. He also says he's not accused anyone of lying.