Prevent must ‘up its game’

Home secretary agrees strategy should cover teenagers fascinated by violence

The government’s interim independent Prevent commissioner has recommended ways in which the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy could be made more effective.

Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC

Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC made his recommendations in a report to the home secretary yesterday on two murderous attacks. Both killers had previously been referred by their schools to Prevent, the Home Office programme designed to stop people being drawn into terrorism.

Prevent’s objectives are:

• tackling the ideological causes of terrorism;

• intervening early to support people susceptible to radicalisation; and

• enabling people who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate.

The second of these objectives is addressed by an early intervention programme called Channel.

More broadly, Prevent is part of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy — known by the abbreviation CONTEST. Its other components are:

• Pursue (detection, investigation and disruption of terrorist activity),

• Protect (reducing vulnerability of people, buildings and infrastructure to attack) and

• Prepare (minimising the impact of attacks).

The attackers

Introducing his report, Anderson said it was the result of two deadly stabbing attacks:

Ali Harbi Ali’s 2021 assassination of Sir David Amess MP at his constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea was a carefully planned act of Islamist-inspired terrorism, directed not only at that exemplary parliamentarian but at the heart of the democratic process.

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana’s 2024 killing spree at a children’s dance club in Southport, though not motivated by any clear ideology, was described by his sentencing judge as equivalent in seriousness to an act of terrorism. He murdered three innocent and defenceless young girls, injured and traumatised others and would have killed many more if he could.

Both perpetrators face the rest of their lives in prison.

Harbi Ali was referred to Prevent by his school in 2014. The system functioned well between his referral and a decision by Channel panel to offer him an “intervention provider” to engage with him ideologically, Anderson reports.

Those early examples of good practice were followed by a long string of failings, some of them consistent with practice at the time but most of them the product of poor judgement, poor communication and lack of follow-through. In particular, his initial meeting with the intervention provider — at which he concealed his true beliefs — was not followed up by any of the further meetings that the police had commissioned.

Rudakubana had been referred to Prevent by his school three times between 2019 and 2021. Anderson describes him as a troubled teenager who was already showing signs of an interest in terrorism as well as some disturbed and violent characteristics. But he was never offered the intervention provider that he might have had if he been adopted into Channel.

Recommendations

That led Anderson to recommend that Prevent should apply to individuals who have no fixed ideology but a fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks.

Prevent could function better if formally connected to a broader safeguarding and violence protection system, he added.

It needed to adapt rapidly to adapt to the online world where so much radicalisation takes place, Anderson said.

And improvements were needed to public transparency as well as information-sharing and engagement.

Anderson said:

A huge amount of effort has already gone into making Prevent a stronger programme than the one into which failed to deal in 2014 with the future killer of Sir David Amess. A blizzard of further initiatives has followed the Southport murders of last summer. Though it is too early for all of these to be fully evaluated, taken together they will reduce the chances of such failings being repeated.

But more needs to be done. It has to be clear that people with a fascination with extreme violence can be suitable subjects for Prevent, even when they have no discernible ideology.

Prevent needs to up its game in the online world, where most radicalisation now takes place. It needs to get better at information-sharing and be more open with the public to gain the trust on which it depends. In the longer term, I believe that Prevent could work better as part of a comprehensive violence prevention and safeguarding strategy.

Response

In a written ministerial statement yesterday, the home secretary welcomed Anderson’s report. Yvette Cooper said the government would:

• clarify Prevent thresholds in guidance and training to ensure that frontline public-sector workers subject to the Prevent duty understand that those “fascinated with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks” should be referred to Prevent;

• improve transparency and information sharing, including by upskilling and training Prevent practitioners, frontline workers, and civil society organisations;

• take steps to strengthen our approach to tackling online radicalisation, through work with tech companies, like-minded international partners, and considering new approaches to identifying and supporting susceptible people online. This includes developing new capabilities to better equip Prevent to manage online radicalisation risks; and

• continue exploratory work on how Prevent connects into wider safeguarding and violence prevention pathways to ensure no-one can fall between the cracks.

She added:

Whilst we must look immediately at how Prevent works alongside wider safeguarding mechanisms to stop further missed opportunities, we also look forward to the outcome of the first phase of the Southport public inquiry, led by Sir Adrian Fulford, which will publish its findings later this year.

Where Lord Anderson’s review has identified the need to explore broader and long-term reforms to safeguarding and violence prevention, we will consider this alongside the inquiry’s recommendations. The inquiry will comprehensively examine all aspects of the events that led to the Southport attack and identify where further changes should be made.