Counter-terrorism police want to see an increase in the mental health services for violence-fixated individuals, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said.
Assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor told a briefing of journalists that “counter-terrorism policing cannot take on everything” and that such individuals fell outside their remit.
He pointed to a “very significant increase in the volume of people either with mixed ideologies, no clear ideology, or very complex caseloads” in their investigations.
Counter-Terrorism Policing currently has 800 live investigations ongoing and last year made 248 terrorism arrests.
Police have also seen a “significant increase” in Prevent referrals since the Southport attack in July last year – and at around 7,000 already, are on course for a record number of referrals this year.
Asked if another attack like Southport could happen, Mr Taylor said that he thinks there is a possibility.
On the number of mental health referrals, he said: “Because we deal at that acute end, I guess it’s not a surprise that we are seeing mental health within the casework.”
The Prevent de-radicalisation programme had also seen more referrals involving mental health, he said.
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“We need to have the capacity within the system to make those right interventions. I don’t believe we have the capacity in the system to deal with the complexities that people are displaying that are coming into our purview – through Prevent or other means.”
Mr Taylor said he thinks capacity needs increasing and that the system needs strengthening.
He said “it takes that whole approach so that we can stop people being drawn into terrorism in the first instance and that is really important”.
“With a far more polarised society, with some of the complexities we’re seeing, with stretched systems, rhetoric might influence more vulnerable individuals into committing atrocities,” he said.
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Counter-terrorism police can “lend” resources and capabilities to tackling those threats, he said, but would not be “sidelined so that we’re not able to spot and deal with the threats that we are set up to deal with”.
“The description of what is a terrorist incident is very clear – it must for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”
The definition means that Counter-Terrorism Policing and the Security Service can “focus their efforts on those individuals who are at that very top of the pyramid in terms of the threat that they pose”.
Mr Taylor said that counter-terrorism police were “part of the state response to people who intend harm to the public” and would “lean in” if they were aware of an individual who was planning to cause mass casualties, without an ideology.
However, he added: “Counter-terrorism policing cannot take on everything – we have finite resources. The threat picture that we’re already dealing with is increasing and we are already stretched.”
