Action to stop terror growth

EFFORTS to weed out terrorists in the making are stepping up in Kirklees.

The council is seeking to bolster its counter-extremism team with a new community worker.

The role, which pays £37,858 £39,660, is being advertised on the council’s jobs page.

The 12-month position is up for grabs thanks to extra funding from the Home Office.

The advert says: “This new role will enhance our work to improve community cohesion and tackle extremism.

“Extremism is one of the greatest challenges the country faces and local authorities have a core role to play in building more resilient communities and tackling the harms extremists cause.

“The post, which is Home Office funded, will support national work to build partnerships with local communities and groups, a key part of the Counter-Extremism Strategy.

“You will help identify mainstream voices and provide support to groups countering extremism in all its forms.

“You will help shape local strategy and interventions related to counter extremism.

“You will have experience of working with, and developing effective and productive relationships with partners, being outcomes focussed and a highly effective communicator.

“You will have a good understanding of what constitutes community cohesion, violent and nonviolent extremism and the range of actions and interventions that can create stronger communities.

“Candidates will therefore be expected to have good knowledge of the Government’s Counter Extremism Strategy 2015.”

The council has had a small counter-extremism team for a number of years.

It has staff working within the community to try and identify people at risk of indoctrination by terrorists or political or religious extremists.

Last year, after Dewsbury teenager and Mirfield Free Grammar School pupil, Talha Asmal, was named as Britain’s youngest suicide bomber, the council recruited four staff specifically to root out children at risk of being recruited by groups such as ISIS.

The latest role comes a few weeks after Security Minister, Ben Wallace MP, visited Dewsbury to speak to mothers about preventing children being radicalised.

And Kirklees has recent links to far-right terrorism after Nazi sympathiser Thomas Mair was convicted of murdering Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox in June this year.

More than a decade ago, Huddersfield’s 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay and ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, of Dewsbury, forever linked the borough with religious extremism.

To find out more about the job go tohttps://jobs.kirklees.gov.uk/project-work-communities-transformation-and-change-community-coordinator-counter-extremism/18709.job