The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has called on a coroner to release minutes of a meeting he had with counter-terrorism police, as she continues to push for a full inquest into her father’s death.
Katie Amess said her father was “catastrophically” failed by the Government’s Prevent programme, and that the meeting in 2022 could help the family understand what was known.
The 69-year-old politician was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali as he carried out a constituency surgery at a church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in October 2021.
Essex’s senior coroner Lincoln Brookes explained his decision not to resume an inquest into Sir David’s death, following Ali’s criminal trial, in an 18-page report.
In it, Mr Brookes noted that an independent review of Ali’s involvement with Prevent had been conducted and it stated he was referred into the scheme in 2014 by the head of his sixth form college.
A six-month review of his case was missed in 2016, but later that year – on December 4 – a 12-month review was conducted and “revealed nothing of concern”, the coroner’s report said.
“It is said that it only turned up a single police CAD from the previous month, regarding the perpetrator complaining that he had been detained by some store staff for wearing Islamic dress,” the coroner wrote.
“In accordance with the Prevent guidance his case was then closed.”
Mr Brookes said that the independent review was “critical of aspects of (Ali’s) management in the scheme”.
But he said: “The fact that the perpetrator’s case was not handled as well as it should have been in Prevent does not of itself amount to any evidence that Sir David’s death was possibly or probably preventable five years later had his case been handled better.
“One can only speculate that it might have done, and mere speculation is not in my view a sufficient reason to hold an inquest.”
Prevent is not fit for purpose. It failed us - catastrophically
Ms Amess said the independent review – called the Prevent Learning Review – should be made public at a full inquest.
“If we are to make sure another family, another MP, another candidate never goes through the hell that we are in then we have to work out why the police and the Security Services couldn’t stop a terrorist murdering my Dad seven years after that boy was referred to Prevent,” she said.
“Prevent is not fit for purpose.
“It failed us – catastrophically.
“The coroner has now made public the ‘missed’ opportunities; when Prevent officials failed to have a follow-up meeting; when they didn’t refer back to the headteacher at the school; ‘problematic’ record keeping before the case was closed.
“The report on the role of Prevent should be made public, at a full inquest.”
Ms Amess continued: “We now know that the coroner met with two officers from SO15 Counter Terror Command in May 2022; a meeting at which he was told the murderer was ‘unknown to Counter Terror Policing’ beyond that 2016 referral.
“We have asked the coroner to provide to us the minutes of that meeting, so that we can fully understand what was known.
I was told, that the authorities had now learned from the perpetrator himself what his activities had been, and that he deliberately ‘went dark’ and avoided behaviours that could have been seen as signs of radicalisation by the authorities
“We want – we think we deserve – to know why Prevent failed. So do the public.
“So do our politicians, who meet their constituents in small back offices, like my Dad did, every week.
“Ultimately, only a full inquest, not just a criminal trial, can conduct a ‘fact-finding mission’ and only a coroner can issue Prevention of Future Deaths notices.
“So far, my family and the public have been denied this.”
Mr Brookes said in his report that he was informed, during the meeting with two SO15 Counter Terrorism Command officers in May 2022, that the “perpetrator was unknown to Counter Terrorism Policing beyond the period connected with the single Prevent referral that ended in 2016”.
“I was told, that the authorities had now learned from the perpetrator himself what his activities had been, and that he deliberately ‘went dark’ and avoided behaviours that could have been seen as signs of radicalisation by the authorities,” he said.
Essex Coroner’s Service has been approached for comment.
