James O'Brien's Emotional Response To Manchester Attack Is A Must-Watch
23 May 2017, 10:32 | Updated: 18 December 2017, 13:17
This is James O'Brien's raw, emotional response to the Manchester Terror Attack.
Children were among the 22 people killed by a suicide bomber following an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.
And James was holding back the tears as he tried to make sense of how someone could target innocent children in an attack.
Speaking on his LBC show, he said: "I got up quite early and went to watch my daughters sleeping, which I don't do very often. I think I'm probably going to a little bit more often in the coming days.
"I just went to watch them sleeping and try to imagine circumstances in which that beautiful innocence would seem like a really good target for death to prove some warped ideological or political or religious point.
"I just tried to imagine how anyone could look at beautiful innocence like that and feel it feeding their hatred and their anger and I can't, any more than I can understand why Ian Brady did what he did."
James discussed taking his nine-year-old daughter to see a concert just this weekend, saying: "As a dad I can't get past the thought that I was bopping away at the O2 - and you know what it's like, you don't watch the show quite often do you? You watch her your own children enjoying the show.
"How many parents there last night won't have been watching the stage, they'll have been watching their little girls dancing in absolutely diluted glee. That's the thing, you don't get that as you get older. That almost transcendental happiness, they can't believe they're actually there and up on the stage. And they turn to each other and they hug each other and they jump up and down and they've got their funny little tattoos on their faces in their special t-shirts and Dad's bankrupted himself buying a couple of cokes, a bag of popcorn and a programme. And it is this it's just pure happiness. Pure happiness. And you watch your children and don't watch the stage.
"And then someone comes along blows himself up and takes as many of these children with him as you can.
"And we're supposed to be able to explain this to our children? I don't know that I can. I don't know where you even begin. There are some evil people out there, they know that. But not at a concert full of kids."
LBC listeners were in tears after listening to James' poignant introduction.
@LBC James O'Brien making me cry this morning, speaking so eloquently about such awful news.
— Binty (@BintyMustard) May 23, 2017
@mrjamesob reducing me to tears with his words about watching his children enjoy concerts. How can people do this?? @lbc #lbc
— Charlie Rhodes (@charlierhodes18) May 23, 2017
