The heinous Southport stabbing last July by a highly radicalised 18-year old quite rightly rocked the Country. Nothing is as evil as the mindless massacre of innocent children, but the relentless focus on knives being sold to minors online is not the key issue.
Stronger laws around the purchasing of knives is laudable and while in Parliament I spent a great deal of time and energy strengthening the law to outlaw all forms of zombie knives.
However, where and how a wicked murderer purchased his murder weapon is of precious little comfort to heart-broken families.
Of far more concern is the fact that this man, like so many other lone wolf killers before him, was not only known to the authorities, he had already been referred to the Prevent counter-extremist programme no less then three times?
Equally alarming was the assertion by the Prime Minister earlier this week that singleton terrorist attacks are a recent occurrence. They are not.
They have been going on for nearly a decade, many in London and, of course, the murder of MP, Sir David Amess whilst carrying out his constituency surgery in Leigh on Sea on the 16th October 2021, was a very sad case in point.
Recent research from the Nottingham Trent University suggests that there have been 44 lone wolf attacks in recent years and there have also been at least 4 other lone wolf attacks where the killer had also been referred to the Prevent programme.
Think Reading Park in 2020, think Streatham in 2019, think London Bridge in 2019 and, of course, think Parsons Green where a lone wolf planted a device on a tube train in rush hour injuring 50 people in 2017.
So there were at least 5 other lone wolf attacks before these poor little girls were massacred where the killer had previous been referred to the Prevent programme.
The murder of Sir David Amess was an atrocious, heinous crime.
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The aims of the Prevent strategy in seeking to pre-empt terrorist attacks by identifying those at risk of becoming terrorists is laudable.
In 2015 the “Prevent Duty” was introduced making it mandatory for public sector workers such as teachers from the child care sector up to university level to identify apparent signs of student extremism, and to refer students to the government’s deradicalization programme, known as Channel.
Despite considerable concern from the further education sector that the Prevent duty would risk driving radicalisation underground, this does not appear to be the case.
In the year to March 2024 nearly 7,000 people were referred to the Prevent programme and a staggering 40 per cent, nearly 3,000 of them were children aged 11 to 15.
How many of the 7,000 referrals would, without referral, have gone on to kill is impossible to say but we do know for a fact that that multiple killers went through the programme and still went on to slay innocent victims on our streets.
Last December my written request on behalf of the Amess family for an inquiry into the circumstances into how and why the Prevent programme failed Sir David Amess was summarily dismissed.
According to the Security Minister, not only is the Prevent programme vital, it is being continually being improved!
Now that we have had the appalling murders of three innocent little girls and attempted murders of others by an evil killer who also known to Prevent, straightaway there is to be a public inquiry.
As it happens, I do not disagree with the need for an inquiry into the circumstances of Southport stabling and my heart goes out to those poor heartbroken families.
The Southport stabbings were the most atrocious, heinous crime but so too was the murder of Sir David Amess, a serving Member of Parliament.
Keir Starmer has been accused of operating a two-tier justice system so far as Prime Minister.
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Given the guilty pleas in both cases, the only way for the victims’ families to understand when and how their loved ones were comprehensively failed by the authorities is via a full public inquiry, but once again, why do we have a two tier system?
Both have left behind grieving, heart-broken families and both have been equally failed by the Prevent programme. Why is one families heartbreak being treated differently to another?
Surely there is a clear public interest in the fullest examination possible of a programme that costs the tax-payer tens of millions of pounds a year yet is clearly failing? It is estimated that no less then £200 million was spent on the programme between 2016 and 2021.
The public inquiry announced yesterday needs to be expanded to cover all families who have been the victim of lone wolf terror attacks where the perpetrator was known the authorities and/or the Prevent programme.
It is a fundamental tenet of our democracy that we are all equal under the law. All similarly affected families in the United Kingdom have an equal right to an enquiry. A former Director of Public Prosecutions must know this.
The level of incompetence, sheer opportunism and obfuscation from the current Prime Minister is beyond belief.