Father of terror-attack victim accuses Johnson of political point-scoring

BORIS JOHNSON saw an opportunity to score political points in the aftermath of the London Bridge terror attack when most people saw a tragedy, the father of one of the victims has said.

Dave Merritt’s 25-year-old son Jack died alongside Saskia Jones, 23, in the attack by Usman Khan during a prisoner rehabilitation event at Fishmongers’ Hall in central London last month.

Mr Merritt said there had been no attempts made to contact the family from either the Prime Minister or Downing Street. He said the family had turned down a meeting with the Home Secretary. Following the attack, Mr Johnson spoke of his anger and claimed that scrapping early release from prison would have stopped convicted terrorist Khan killing two people.

He said that because the “broken hung parliament was preoccupied with blocking Brexit”, the Government was unable to make the changes required to keep violent offenders and terrorists in jail for longer.

In an interview with Sky News, Mr Merritt said: “What was required was just a dignified approach whereby the politicians would express their regrets, express their condolences to the people affected, and would then get on with campaigning in the election. It wasn’t an election issue.

“Where most of us were watching this and seeing a tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes. Instead of seeing a tragedy Boris Johnson saw an opportunity and he went on the offensive.

“He saw an opportunity to score some points in the election – he immediately said ‘oh this is Labour’s fault, they allowed this to happen, they had this early release policy’ and so on.

“At that point... well I had to say something.”

Mr Merritt was asked how he felt about his son’s picture being used alongside headlines about changing sentencing and comments from the Prime Minister.

He replied: “Pretty much as you would expect. It just reinforced my views and my feelings about the way in which this situation was being exploited.

“It just struck me as being crass and insensitive and, as we’ve already said, Jack would have been extremely upset at the way in which things were developing.”

It was put to Mr Merritt that some people may say that he himself has politicised his son’s death due to not liking Boris Johnson.

He replied: “I would say that if anybody has a right to say something about this situation then it’s me and his family.”

A Conservative spokesman said: “The PM has expressed his deepest condolences to Mr Merritt for his tragic loss – an experience no family should have to go through.

“The PM’s view remains it is ‘extraordinary and wrong’ that Khan had been released halfway through his prison sentence and has long argued that sentencing should be tougher for violent and extremist offenders.”