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Tributes paid to Chloe and Liam at Manchester Arena inquiry

Two people tried to help trainee travel agent Chloe Rutherford and her boyfriend Liam Curry as they were caught up in the Manchester Arena bombing.

An inquiry into the deaths of 22 people in the May 2017 attack on the Ariana Grande concert venue heard about the final moments of the teenage couple from South Shields.

The inquiry was told that Westoe Travel apprentice Chloe, 17, and her 19-year-old boyfriend walked into the arena foyer just 11 seconds before the explosion.

CCTV showed the motionless couple lying side-by-side after the explosion, the BBC reported.

Their families thanked transport worker Philip Clegg, who checked on them, and Gareth Chapman, a member of the public who covered them with concert t-shirts.

The families said they treated “their beautiful children with the respect and dignity they so deserved”.

In a statement, they added the couple “came into the world with nothing, nothing at all, but have left it with nothing but love”.

“They remain with us as part of our lives always.”

Paying tribute, the inquiry chair Sir John Saunders said their relationship “was very special”.

“After a short period of time together, their greatest wish was that they would never be separated [and] they weren’t.”

The Chloe and Liam Together Forever Trust was set up in their memory to raise funds to support young people in the north-east of England.

The inquiry has been hearing the individual circumstances of how each of the 22 people died when Salman Abedi set off a homemade device at the venue.

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