A father whose daughter was killed in the Manchester Arena Attack has described the decision to block legal action against MI5 as “pathetic”.
Andrew Roussos’s daughter Saffie-Rose, eight, was the youngest of the 22 people killed in the bombing in 2017.
He said security services had “thrown everything they could” to stop a legal case by bereaved families and survivors who alleged MI5 failings in preventing the attack.
But judges on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled the action could not continue as the case had been brought too late.
A Home Office spokesman said the government “noted” the judgement, adding MI5 “participated fully” the public inquiry into the attack.
More than 300 claimants had alleged their human rights had been infringed because the security service failed to take appropriate steps to prevent the attack by the bomber Salman Abedi .
The claim was not brought until the delayed and final report of a public inquiry into the bombing, which concluded security services missed a chance to take action that may have stopped Abedi.
Judges Lord Justice Singh and Mrs Justice Farbey said though they could understand why the claim was not brought until the release of the report, it needed to have been made sooner.
Mr Roussos said families had to “wait for all these reports to get the truth, and now we know the truth, we’re out of time”.
“In the months running up to the tribunal, MI5 [and] their legal team did everything they could to stop it,” he said
“For MI5 to turn around and say we cannot take this any further because you’re out of time, that’s a pathetic excuse not to hear our side and hear the evidence.”
The judge also said had the claims been allowed to continue, MI5 would have needed to divert resources to the proceedings rather than “their core responsibilities” of stopping future attacks.
“The legal action is dealt with by the legal team, not MI5 agents”, Mr Roussos said.
“You look at every court [building] and it says justice along the top, this is not justice, this is hiding.
“My family personally don’t feel justice has been served here.”
In a statement the Home Office spokesman said: “Our thoughts continue to be with all those who lost loved ones, and suffered such terrible harm, as a result of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack.”