The recently appointed Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations (ACSO), Neil Basu, has praised the public’s willingness to contact police after what the authorities term last year’s unprecedented rise in terrorist activity. Record numbers of people contacted the police to report suspicious behaviour and activity through online referral forms and the confidential hotline.
Neil Basu launched a second phase of the ‘ACT – Action Counters Terrorism’ campaign, featuring a new 60-second film based on real foiled plots, which will show examples of terrorist-related suspicious activity and behavior, and attack planning methods. Police encourage the public to report suspicious behaviour and activity via the online tool gov.uk/ACT.
He said: “We have been saying for some time now that communities defeat terrorism, and these figures demonstrate just how important members of the public are in the fight to keep our country safe. Since the beginning of 2017 we have foiled 10 Islamist and four right wing terror plots, and there is no doubt in my mind that would have been impossible to do without relevant information from the public.”
Of the nearly 31000 public reports to Counter Terrorism (CT) Policing during 2017, more than 6600 (21.2pc) resulted in useful intelligence – defined as information which is used by UK officers to inform live investigations or help build an intelligence picture of an individual or group. Police suggest that while more than 80pc of people are motivated to report suspicious activity or behaviour, many are unclear exactly what they should be looking for. Hence the effort to educate the public about terrorist attack planning and to give the message that any piece of information, no matter how small, could make the difference between a lethal attack or a successful disruption.
Neil Basu said: “Like other criminals, terrorists need to plan and that creates opportunities for police and the security services to discover and stop these attacks before they happen. But we need your help to exploit these opportunities, so if you see or hear something unusual or suspicious trust your instincts and ACT by reporting it in confidence by phone or online.
“That could be someone buying or storing chemicals, fertilisers or gas cylinders for no obvious reasons, or receiving deliveries for unusual items, it could be someone embracing extremist ideology, or searching for such material online.
“This new film has been made to try and help people understand recent terrorist attack-planning methods, but also to demonstrate that each report from the public can be one vital piece of a much larger picture. The important thing for people to remember is that no report is a waste of our time, trust your instincts and tell us if something doesn’t feel right.”
