‘I think about the victims every day’
“THERE have been 12 successful attacks in the six years I’ve been in counter-terrorism, and every single one of those lives with me every minute of every day.
“Anyone who saw me give evidence at the Manchester public inquiry [will know that]. I’ve given many speeches since 2017, when I was Mark’s [Rowley] deputy, and my sole responsibility was preventing attacks in the UK, to work with MI5 to prevent attacks in the UK.
“My four-page job description comes down to that one line, and there were five attacks and 36 people died. There was a time, and I’m getting old, I could tell you their names, and I do think about them every day.
“My lawyer, before I went to the Manchester public inquiry [into the Arena bombing], said, ‘You can’t say that, that’s just not true. Nobody feels like that.’ I do. I took this job to stop there being more victims., and in the time that I’ve been in counter-terrorism, we have stopped 28 plots to kill people in the UK. So, we are quite effective at stopping them.
“When you consider that there are tens and tens of thousands of people who are potentially dangerous, but they may just be keyboard warriors. We have to make judgments every single day about whether that is the person we’re putting our resources against, or whether it’s that person, or whether it’s that one. That is why there is that cell.
“There are people making those fine judgments every day on behalf of 65 million people, who are castigated when they get it wrong, and very, very rarely do you hear about when they get it right.”