London Bridge terror attack victim’s father lashes out at government

Boris Johnson is facing a backlash from a victim’s father for politicising the London Bridge terror attack today.

The Prime Minister has launched a crackdown after 28-year-old convicted terrorist Usman Khan went on a rampage while out of prison on licence.

Former University of Cambridge students Saskia Jones, 23, and Jack Merritt, 25, were fatally stabbed during a prisoner rehabilitation event on Friday. 

Mr Johnson accused Labour of weakening the law on early release during an interview yesterday, with the Tories saying Jeremy Corbyn – who has boasted of voting against all counter-terror legislation since 1983 – is ‘soft on terrorists’.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland insisted this morning that the Labour leader had a record of ‘making excuses’ for extremists. 

The premier has vowed to take steps to ensure people are not released early when they commit serious offences.

But Mr Merritt’s father David, a schools housing manager from Cottenham and Labour activist, said last night: ‘Don’t use my son’s death, and his and his colleague’s photos – to promote your vile propaganda.

‘Jack stood against everything you stand for – hatred, division, ignorance.’ 

The family of Mr Merritt, from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, asked his death not be used to justify introducing ‘even more draconian sentences’ on offenders in a heartfelt tribute yesterday. 

The criticism came amid an extraordinary blame game over the latest tragedy on the streets of London three days ago. 

 

Khan was on licence and wearing an electronic monitoring tag when he launched the attack, which injured three others, after he was invited to the prisoner rehabilitation conference on Friday afternoon.

The event was organised held by Learning Together, a programme associated with Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology.

The attack has prompted the Ministry of Justice to review the licence conditions of every convicted terrorist released from prison, which Mr Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show yesterday said was ‘probably about 74’ people.

Mr Johnson has vowed to take steps to ensure people are not released early when they commit serious offences.

Mr Corbyn also made a speech on the terrorism threat yesterday, saying Western aggression and austerity was responsible for fuelling the problems, and convicted terrorists should ‘not necessarily’ serve their full sentences. 

David Merritt, who describes himself on Twitter as a ‘pragmatic left-leaning atheist’, has been repeatedly retweeting messages urging politicians against knee-jerk reactions to the London Bridge attack.

While he is believed to be a Labour supporter, he also retweeted a post from Sky News’ Kay Burley criticising both Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn for using the attack as a ‘campaigning tool’.

Labour’s election candidate in Cambridge, Daniel Zeichner, told the Cambridge Independent: ‘This is hugely tragic for Cambridge. A young life has been taken needlessly and so much potential has been wasted. Jack’s dad is a Labour Party member so the whole Labour family feel this particularly hard.’ 

Pressed during a campaign event at London’s Finsbury Park station over whether released terror convicts should be reassessed and serve their full sentences, the Labour leader said it is ‘quite right to look at every case’.

He said: ‘I think terrorists should be sentenced, as they are, and they should be released as and when they have completed a significant proportion of their sentence and they’ve undergone rehabilitation and they are considered safe to the public as a whole. 

‘I do think that continuing with the process allows people to be released ahead of final complete of their sentence if they’ve been rehabilitated and they have been suitably assessed and they are very strictly monitored when they come out – I think that must be the correct way of doing things. 

‘There are enormous questions to be learned from this terrible event that happened last week and that is, what happened in the prison with this particular individual, what assessment was made of his psychological condition before he was released and also what supervision and monitoring he was under after coming out?’ 

In a statement yesterday, family of Mr Merritt, from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, asked for his death to not to be used to justify introducing ‘even more draconian sentences’ on offenders in a heartfelt tribute released yesterday.

They said: ‘He lit up our lives and the lives of his many friends and colleagues, and we will miss him terribly.

‘Jack lived his principles; he believed in redemption and rehabilitation, not revenge, and he always took the side of the underdog.

‘We know Jack would not want this terrible, isolated incident to be used as a pretext by the government for introducing even more draconian sentences on prisoners, or for detaining people in prison for longer than necessary.’ 

Miss Jones, a volunteer with Learning Together from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, was described as having a ‘great passion’ for providing support to victims of crime by her family.

In a statement, they said: ‘She was intent on living life to the full and had a wonderful thirst for knowledge, enabling her to be the best she could be.

‘Saskia had a great passion for providing invaluable support to victims of criminal injustice, which led her to the point of recently applying for the police graduate recruitment programme, wishing to specialise in victim support.’

Khan, who was living in Stafford, was given permission to travel into the heart of London by police and the probation service.

Convicted of terror offences in February 2012, he was released from prison on licence in December 2018, halfway through his 16-year prison sentence.

But the Tories and Labour have been clashing bitterly over who was responsible for the failure in the systems. 

Mr Johnson has argued that the Labour government failed to bolster laws after ‘indeterminate” sentences were ruled illegal by the courts.

But Mr Corbyn has pointed to cuts in rehabilitation services and said police numbers should rise.  

A Sentencing Bill included in the Queen’s Speech in October, which became defunct once the election was called, would have changed the automatic release point from halfway to two thirds for adult offenders serving sentences of four years or more for serious violence or sexual offences.

Judges can already impose extended sentences for offenders assessed as ‘dangerous’, where they will serve two thirds, but the proposed legislation would make the longer jail terms mandatory for certain offences. 

Police have made the first arrest in a new blitz on convicted terrorists who are free to walk our streets.

An Islamist jailed alongside London Bridge killer Usman Khan was dramatically held for allegedly plotting a fresh atrocity.

Nazam Hussain, 34, was detained just hours after Boris Johnson announced a top-level review into the licence conditions of 74 convicted terrorists who are now out of jail.

Hussain was originally jailed in 2012 as part of a terror cell which was plotting to attack the London Stock Exchange and other high-profile targets in the City of London.

His arrest means new offences were allegedly discovered within hours of the review being demanded – raising serious questions about how convicted terrorists are supervised after being freed from jail.

Specialist officers from the West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit arrested Hussain in Stoke-on-Trent yesterday. 

Sources confirmed he was being held ‘on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts’.

He is believed to have been freed from jail less than a year ago, at roughly the same time as Khan. 

Usman launched the fatal attack at the Learning Together event just before 2pm on Friday.

Armed with two knives and wearing a fake suicide vest, he was tackled by members of the public, including ex-offenders from the conference, before he was shot dead by police.

One of the three people injured in the attack has been allowed to return home while the other two remain in a stable condition in hospital.

No-one else is being sought over the attack.

A vigil will be held later to pay tribute to the victims of the terror attack and to honour the emergency services and members of the public who responded to the incident. 

The remembrance service at Guildhall Yard comes as West Midlands Police said a 34-year-old man arrested in Stoke-on-Trent on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts has been recalled to prison due to a suspected breach of his licence conditions.

Officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit held the man after a search of his home on Saturday.

The force has said that there is no information to suggest he was involved in the incident at London Bridge.