Anti-terror Prevent scheme ‘cannot be perfect’
A WEST Midlands support worker who works to stop people becoming terrorists says the chilling murder of MP Sir David Amess led to “much pain and soul-searching”.
But Sean Arbuthnot argued there could never be a perfect system to stop attacks from happening.
Mr Arbuthnot works as Birmingham City Council’s Prevent co-ordinator, the Government-led programme which aims to stop people thought to be vulnerable to radicalisation from becoming fully-fledged terrorists. Following the killing of
Conservative MP Sir David last October, it emerged knifeman Ali Harbi Ali had been through the Prevent anti-radicalisation scheme. It has been reported it was concluded he did not pose a significant danger.
Anti-terror expert Mr Arbuthnot said every time a terrorist was found to have been through the Prevent pro- gramme it made him question whether ‘we had failed’.
Mr Arbuthnot admitted Prevent was “far from perfect” but insisted there was also “much that is great”.
He said: “Managing risk is hard and can be subjective with lots of grey areas. No strategy will ever be 100% effective. Prevent will never stop all terrorist attacks, especially given the ever-evolving, sometimes unsophisticated nature of terror attacks, often conducted by lone actors.” Mr Arbuthnot says tireless hours of good work by anti-terror and intelligence teams goes unseen by the public as it is kept secret.
He accepted experts like himself would be in the line of fire every time a terrorist slips through the net but argued experts often find themselves in a situation where they can’t win.
“Lots of great work takes place, rarely publicised because we deal with confidential safeguarding cases. I’ve seen Prevent change lives. Recently I went to the wedding of a former referral who has turned their life around.”