Expanding terror definition could ‘overwhelm’ police and MI5, says watchdog
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Widening the definition of terrorism could overwhelm the police and MI5, the lawyer carrying out a review of the definition has warned. Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, suggested the security services lacked the resources to deal with an expanded definition of terrorism that could end up including football hooligans and regular criminal gangs.
His comments, made in an interview with The Times, follow a speech by Sir Keir Starmer in which the Prime Minister tasked Mr Hall with investigating whether terror laws should be widened to include people such as Southport killer Axel Rudakubana. The teenager, who is due to be sentenced on Thursday for offences including the murder of three young girls, is said to have been fascinated by violence “for its own sake” rather than possessing the clear ideology that current laws require for an act to be considered terrorism.
That lack of an ideology meant he did not fit the criteria for the counter-extremism Prevent programme, despite being referred to it three times amid concerns over his fixation with violence. Sir Keir said the Southport case demonstrated there was now a different kind of terrorism and suggested expanding the definition to address “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms”.
Speaking to The Times, Mr Hall insisted he would “keep an open mind”, but suggested such a move would be “expanding the definition too much”. He said: “The PM talked about whether we should have a new sort of terrorism where violence is used to terrorise.
