Lisa Lees

Lisa Lees, aged 43, from Oldham, Greater Manchester was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing.

On 22 May 2017, at approximately 10:31 p.m., Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old British-Libyan man born in Manchester to Libyan parents, carried out a suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena in England at the end of an Ariana Grande concert. 

Abedi, a UK citizen who had recently returned from Libya, detonated a TATP-based nail bomb packed with shrapnel in the City Room foyer, killing 22 people (including children) and injuring 1,017 others (239 with physical injuries). 

His younger brother, Hashem Abedi (also British-Libyan), helped source materials and coordinate the attack from Libya; he was later convicted in the UK of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to cause an explosion, receiving a life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years. 

Lisa Lees and her friend Alison Howe were killed while waiting to pick up their daughters from the concert.

Her husband Anthony said Lisa had been “the heart and soul of our family, adding that she had “had so much more to give in life”.

Lisa was a beauty tutor who was “always ready to help her students” and also set up an organisation giving aromatherapy and massage treatment to ease the pain of dying youngsters.

“She was a true angel, caring and beautiful, both inside and out,” said Anthony, whom she married in 1999.

Rest in peace Lisa. You will not be forgotten.