‘Give terrorists lie tests after prison release’

LIE detector tests should be used on convicted terrorists to assess the threat after they are released from jail, the official watchdog has said.

Jonathan Hall QC stressed that the tests – called polygraphs – could be a ‘sensible additional tool’. It was part of a raft of recommendations he made after ministers ordered a study following the stabbing to death of two people on London Bridge by a convicted terrorist in 2019.

Mr Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, recommended a change in the law to permit lie tests.

Terrorists could be attached to monitors and quizzed to find out if they have broken strict parole conditions, such as whether they have entered an exclusion zone or been in contact with other extremists. Culprits could be sent back to prison if the £4,000 machines uncover fresh evidence they have reoffended.

Polygraphs have been used by the Ministry of Justice since 2014 to quiz serious sex offenders after they are freed – resulting in more than 160 being sent back to prison. Mr Hall’s 66-page report, published yesterday, was also critical of a scheme used to assess the risk posed by freed terrorists.

He said in some cases the scheme, called ERG 22+, ‘minimised the seriousness of terrorist offences and accepted the offender’s characterisation (and in some cases denials) of offences of which they had been convicted’. ‘It was not clear that sufficient attention was paid to the facts of the offence or the judge’s sentencing remarks,’ he wrote.

Dr Alan Mendoza, of counter-extremism think-tank the Henry Jackson Society, said: ‘After last year’s attacks, the introduction of lie detectors are a welcome change. They will prove an important line of defence in working out if a terrorist due for release has truly deradicalised.

‘Tools like this will help reduce the danger to public safety of reoffending in these cases to as near as zero as possible.’