Sir David Amess killer left Prevent too quickly, review says

Sir David Amess’s killer was exited from the government’s Prevent anti-terror programme too quickly and its handling of him was “sub-optimal”, a review has said.

Ali Harbi Ali murdered the Conservative MP for Southend West at a constituency surgery in October 2021.

He first became known to the Prevent programme in October 2014 after teachers noticed a change in his behaviour, but his case was closed in 2016.

The Prevent Learning Review into the case was published earlier and said the “hope” of addressing Ali’s vulnerabilities was missed because of a “breakdown in communication”.

The review was commissioned by the Home Office and Counter Terrorism Police.

Ali was assigned an adviser and, in 2015, was assessed as a low terrorism risk and taken off the programme.

Sir David’s family has formally complained about how Essex Police handled this process.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the report found “record-keeping was problematic and the rationale for certain decisions was not explicit”.

He added: “Responsibilities between police and local authorities were blurred. The tool used for identifying an individual’s vulnerability to radicalism was outdated.”

Sir David was fatally stabbed on 15 October 2021 in Leigh-on-Sea by Islamist extremist Ali.

The minister added: “The case was adopted by the Channel Multi-Agency Early Intervention Programme in November of 2014.

“An intervention provider who specialised in tackling Islamist extremism was assigned to work with him.

“The perpetrator was exited from Channel in April 2015 after his terrorism risk was assessed as low.

“A 12-month post-exit police review in 2016 also found no terrorism concerns. The case was closed to Prevent at that point.

“There were no further Prevent referrals in the five years between the case being closed and the attack.”

Mr Jarvis listed other issues identified in the report:

• The support given did not tackle all the vulnerabilities identified
• The school that made the referral should have been involved to help determine risk and support
• The tasking of an intervention provider was problematic with only one session being provided, rather than two

David Burton Sampson, the current Labour MP for Southend West and Leigh, said the Amess family “are still in absolute devastation”.

“I will continue working closely with the family and the Home Secretary and her team to help them get the answers they need,” he said.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, former Southend West Conservative MP Anna Firth, Sir David’s successor, said his family and those of the Southport victims had been equally failed by Prevent.

Firth’s letter suggested the inquiry could include other incidents where she argued Prevent had failed, such as the three 2020 Reading murders by Khairi Saadallah and the two London Bridge killings by Usman Khan.