Treating Terror
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In recent months convicted terrorists just released from prison have launched knife attacks which have maimed and killed - the latest one on Streatham High Street in South London. Both attackers were shot dead by police officers.
David Aaronovitch asks why events like these are happening, and whether we are releasing convicted terrorists too early. The government is promising swift action, but will the proposed changes make us safer?
He asks what we know about the success of de-radicalisation programmes in our prisons and whether there are lessons we should be learning from other countries.
Contributors:
Nazir Afzal, former Chief Prosecutor
Andrew Silke, Professor of Terrorism, Risk and Resilience at the Cranfield Forensic Institute
Lord David Anderson QC, former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in the United Kingdom
Dominic Casciani, BBC Home Affairs Correspondent
Producers: Rosamund Jones, Kirsteen Knight, Jordan Dunbar and Tom Wright Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.1 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:08.1 | The briefing room is the comprehension room where in 28 minutes, you and I get to understand a big issue with the help of the top experts on the subject. |
| 0:17.6 | This week there was another terror knife attack in South London. |
| 0:21.6 | The perpetrator had just left jail halfway through his sentence for terrorist offences. |
| 0:27.4 | Is there anything genuinely effective that can be done to stop this happening again? |
| 0:43.0 | Terror is a good. Terror topped the news this morning. |
| 0:44.1 | The headlines. |
| 0:47.0 | Ministers are rushing legislation through Parliament to prevent a terrorist from being released from prison at the end of the month. |
| 0:51.0 | The attack last Sunday in South London |
| 0:52.9 | and the far more deadly one last November at Fishmongers Hall |
| 0:56.3 | both involved convicted terrorists led out of prison on licence halfway through their sentences. |
| 1:03.1 | The call for something to be done has grown louder and the governments need to respond more urgent. |
| 1:09.2 | So what's really going on? |
| 1:11.4 | Is the justice system failing? |
| 1:13.5 | Or does the problem lie in what happens in prison? |
| 1:16.3 | And will the government's planned legislation |
| 1:18.3 | to stop more terrorists being automatically freed from jail help? |
| 1:23.7 | Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:38.6 | Let's start with an expert reporter's analysis of the case of Sudesh Amman, the terrorists killed in Streatham. |
| 1:43.3 | The BBC's home affairs correspondent, Dominic Kashiani, joined me earlier. |
| 1:45.1 | Dominic, remind us, what offence was Sudesha Mann originally imprisoned for? So Sudesh Iman was quite a dangerous |
... |
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