The failure to stop the London Bridge attack must act as a wake-up call

Coroner’s report lays bare missed opportunities for security services before the atrocity, Lizzie Dearden writes

Ringleader Khuram Butt appears in a documentary in 2016 (Channel 4)

A fresh report on alleged failings by intelligence services, police and public authorities ahead of the London Bridge attack will inspire little confidence.

Mark Lucraft QC, the chief coroner for England and Wales, said he was compelled by law to make a report demanding actions to prevent future deaths after hearing “concerning” evidence at inquests into the victims’ and attackers’ deaths.

They revealed how security services failed to spot that ringleader Khuram Butt was planning a terror attack, despite having him under surveillance for two years – for alleged terror plotting.

A known extremist associated with Anjem Choudary’s terrorist network, he was not arrested after appearing in a television documentary praying to an Isis flag or prosecuted for harassing a counter-extremism campaigner.

Butt was able to gain work on the London Underground while under investigation by MI5, teach children at an Islamic primary and work at a gym run by an alleged Islamist.

When police seized his electronic devices as part of an unrelated fraud investigation in October 2016, they found evidence he had viewed Isis propaganda and other extremist material but they did not attempt to prosecute him for it.

A police officer from Scotland Yard’s SO15 counterterror unit told the inquest that such “subjects of interest” often viewed such material without committing an attack, but that was little comfort to bereaved families.

Mr Lucraft raised particular concern over how the investigation into Butt was suspended twice, including just a month before the attack, and why he was initially graded as having “weak capability” to launch an attack.

Calling for a review of MI5’s assessment processes for potential lone actor terrorists, he questioned how capability could be judged in an age of increasingly fast-paced and low-technology terror plots.

The coroner was also highly critical of the failure to install barriers on London Bridge, even after it was flagged as a potential terror target by police and a consultancy firm.

Mr Lucraft said “excessively rigid” national guidelines meant the bridge could not be officially designated as a “crowded place” warranting protective security.

“In my opinion, there is a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken,” he concluded.

Overall, the report painted a picture of a chaotic and outdated response by security services to terror threats before the 2017 attacks.

A system that sought to judge “capability”, three years after Isis called for random global attacks using vehicles and knives, and wrongly viewed disassociation from real-world extremists as a sign of decreased risk.

An MI5 officer told the inquests investigations like those into Butt are suspended in times of high demand, so the service can concentrate on people thought to be a greater threat.

But the means of judging that threat must now being questioned at the highest levels.

After all, both Butt and the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi had been MI5 “subjects of interest” but were not prevented from launching their attacks.

The Westminster attacker, Khalid Masood, had been on the radar once but was not considered a threat and the other 2017 terrorists were completely unknown.

The fact that security services have foiled 22 terror plots since the Westminster attack in March 2017 signals that changes may have already been made, but as the UK terror threat remains at a “severe” level, there is no room for complacency.