{"id":508639,"date":"2026-04-02T08:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508639\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T08:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:45:09","slug":"overwhelmed-prevent-at-risk-of-missing-threats-as-referrals-rise-uk-counter-terror-chief-says-prevent-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508639\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Overwhelmed\u2019 Prevent at risk of missing threats as referrals rise, UK counter-terror chief says | Prevent strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scheme meant to identify people before they become terrorists is being \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by a large surge in referrals, Britain\u2019s head of counterterrorism has said.<\/p>\n

Assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor told the Guardian that more than 10,000 people would be referred to Prevent this year, up more than a third from two years ago.<\/p>\n

While some referrals were trivial \u2013 including a primary school pupil being reported for kicking a classmate the day after watching the children\u2019s movie Kung Fu Panda \u2013 the majority involved concerns about people being interested in violence, but where no ideology was involved.<\/p>\n

Reports to Prevent started to increase after the 2024 Southport knife attack. The Guardian revealed<\/a> that the teenager who killed three schoolgirls at a dance class had been referred to the counter-terrorism scheme three times, but was dismissed because his fascination with violence was assessed as not being driven by jihadist or extreme rightwing ideologies.<\/p>\n

Taylor said the big increase in referrals was in part because there was nowhere else for people to report concerns about young people feared to be interested in violence. He said the rise meant Prevent risked missing the people it needed to deal with.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirstly, when you increase the volume, then the time to do the assessments increases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prevent was set up specifically to deal with people vulnerable to radicalisation, he said, so the more time spent assessing people who were not vulnerable in this way \u201cit increases the risk of us not spotting somebody that is \u2026 because the system is overwhelmed with referrals\u201d.<\/p>\n

More than half of those referred to Prevent last year were assessed as having no fixed ideology. Taylor said: \u201cThe challenge we have in the Prevent system is there is no triage that sits above it, so Prevent currently is the only bucket into which all of these referrals can sit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see people with material from Isis and neo-Nazis. We see people watching beheadings and school shootings. We see the gamification of that. So it\u2019s people who are just absorbing horrible stuff that is creating concern for the people who refer them, but they\u2019re not motivated by an ideology specifically, ie extreme rightwing or Islamist.\u201d<\/p>\n

A review by David Anderson after Southport<\/a> said the government should consider a new scheme to spot those fascinated with violence, then refer them to where they can best get help.<\/p>\n

Taylor said: \u201cPrevent is set up to deal with an ideology. So when you are driven by an ideology, then Prevent is absolutely the right forum for referral for you to be dealt with. If there is no ideology and there are mental health issues, Prevent is not the right place to challenge and deal and provide support to an individual with those challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later this month an independent review into Southport is expected to be critical of the handling of the killer by Prevent, health services and local authorities. Concerns were repeatedly raised about Axel Rudakubana, who was found guilty of the murders, before the atrocity in Southport.<\/p>\n

Taylor became the head of counter-terrorism last year. Threats from hostile states, such as Iran and Russia, increased in the first three months of 2026, having already surged by 500% in the year to December 2025. Taylor said hostile states and terrorist groups, such as Islamic State, were growing in their ambition. \u201cThey are looking for more sophisticated attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Iran war could increase the risk of attack: \u201cWith any global conflict, any sort of geopolitical instability, it\u2019s sort of invariably the case that we see an impact on our casework.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst the national threat level hasn\u2019t increased, I think it\u2019s fair to say the risk has probably increased in terms of activity we might see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether the Trump presidency was having a radicalising effect, Taylor stressed he did not want to make a political comment. Rather, he said it could be one of several factors behind rising tensions: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen for a number of years an increasing polarisation, without doubt. You only need to look at the level of protest in London and the diversity of protest in London to see how many different views there are \u2026. Whether you could directly attribute that to the US and Trump, I wouldn\u2019t like to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are many, many things at play here, of which that is but one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scheme meant to identify people before they become terrorists is being \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by a large surge in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-508639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}