belgarion wrote:canta_brian wrote:belgarion wrote:
Hold on, just being hypothetical here but if he was reported to the police, community bobby or otherwise, wouldn't
it have been passed along to the relevant department & so has absolutely feck all to do with whether there was a community
bobby or not.
Or maybe lower level behaviour would have been reported, the community bobby may have spoken at the same time to his imam and it might never have needed to reach anyone like the anti terrorism units(who appear to have missed him anyway).
With that last sentence are you suggesting that if a community PC had had a chat with Abedi's Imam that would have
stopped the attack, because if you are I think you are being a little bit naive.
This assumes that community policemen are actually spoken to by supporters of Islamic fundamentalism. It also doesn't take into account the use of PCSOs who fulfil many community roles that used to have a Constable instead.
Gathering intelligence is one workstream, yet in recent cases, intelligence on the terrorists was passed on. Was it not acted upon because of insufficient resources, or more likely because there was no justifiable reason to take further action.
There is a requirement for a certain level of confidence that someone is a real threat before surveillance is authorised. Covert, intrusive surveillance isn't done for the hell of it. Secondly, the prosecute someone, or even to undertake some kind of restrictive action requires evidence. As others have pointed out, the evidence might not be sufficient for a prosecution, or it might be too sensitive to use in court, but there has to be something.
If gobbling off about support how terrorists are justified in launching their attacks is going to result in close surveillance or limits on individual freedoms, then a few posters on this board over the years would have been in a spot of bother.
Our police and security service work according to the rule of law. That requires more than unsubstantiated comments on a person being a bit dodgy.