Record number of UK children arrested for terror offences | UK security and counter-terrorism
Police arrested a record number of children for terror offences over a 12-month period, a development that investigators have linked to the shutdown of schools during the early stages of the pandemic.
Figures released by the Home Office show that 25 under-18s were arrested in the year to September, the vast majority in relation to far-right ideology.
The number was the highest proportion recorded in a 12-month period, accounting for 13% of all terror arrests. It was an increase of eight, up from 17 (8%) the previous year.
“We are very concerned that children are becoming an increasing proportion of our arrests,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, the senior national coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.
Earlier this year it emerged that MI5 had investigated a 13-year-old neo-Nazi from Cornwall who was found guilty in February of possessing bomb-making manuals and disseminating far-right materials online.
Last week a 17-year-old from Derbyshire appeared before Westminster magistrates charged with possessing and sharing a terrorist publication. He had been arrested in February and a trial is expected next year.
Investigators highlighted the impact of pandemic-related school closures. The educational setting helps normalise behaviour, they argue, while schools regularly report cases of concern to Prevent, the government’s deradicalisation programme.
Loneliness during lockdowns and the ease with which sophisticated computer-using youngsters with time on their hands can seek out extremist material when not being supervised are also factors that police believe are driving the rise in numbers. Other extremists are also using Covid conspiracy theories and online gaming channels as a means of recruitment.
At the same time, restrictions on socialising and movement helped push down the number of adult arrests by 13%, reflecting wider lockdown-related falls in crime.
Officers said they wanted parents to be more aware of the risks and be prepared to call in Prevent, although few currently do. “Our research tells us that parents, family members and friends are the first to see the changes in behaviour which might indicate that a loved one is being radicalised,” Haydon said. “But currently just 3% of people we help through Prevent come to the programme because of concerns raised by those same people who know them best.”
He advised parents to seek out advice online from the Act Early scheme.
Overall, counter-terror police said they had stopped 32 “late-stage” plots over the four years from 2017, an increase of one since September and four since March. Those uncovered by police and MI5 since March include three far-right plots and one left-wing, anarchist or single-issue plot – while the total of Islamist plots has remained unchanged at 18.
Two terror attacks have also taken place this autumn. In October, Conservative MP Sir David Amess was stabbed to death at his constituency surgery in Leigh-on-sea, Essex, in what is believed to be an Islamist attack. A month later a man blew himself up in a taxi outside Liverpool Women’s hospital for reasons investigators are yet to firmly identify.
Reflecting the increasing focus on far-right activity, the number of white people arrested as terror suspects is now double the number of Asians. The Home Office data said that the number of white people apprehended rose by 5% over the year to 101.
There was also a 40% decrease in the number of arrests of people of Asian ethnic appearance from 82 to 49. “The proportion of white people arrested exceeded the proportion of Asian people arrested for the fourth consecutive year,” said the quarterly statistics report.
Last month, new figures from Prevent, covering 2020-21, show that 310 people were referred to the programme by schools, colleges and universities because of far-right links. Just 157 were referred because of vulnerability to Islamic extremism.
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