New surge in terror cases as Jihadis flood back to UK from Syria

The Crown Prosecution Service’s head of counter-terrorism has warned of a surge in cases involving Islamist and far-Righ extremists
Reuters

Prosecutors today announced a major drive to recruit terrorism lawyers, warning of a surge in cases involving Islamist and far-Right extremists.

Sue Hemming, the Crown Prosecution Service’s head of counter-terrorism, said her team had doubled in size to cope with “cases emerging from Syria” and the rise of Islamic State, as well as the recent attacks here. But she said even more lawyers were required.

In further remarks, Ms Hemming also delivered a veiled rebuff to the government’s terror watchdog, Max Hill QC.

He has said that it would be desirable if no specialist counter-terrorism laws were needed, with suspects prosecuted using the ordinary criminal law instead.

But Ms Hemming said: “We must recognise that specific counter terrorism powers are necessary, and acting early to safeguard public safety means that traditional investigative powers are not always sufficient.

"Prosecutors need offences available to prosecute those who rightly need to be brought to justice, where traditional criminal offences do not fit conduct that rightly calls for punishment.

“We use offences such as murder, conspiracy to murder, explosive substances or incitement to hatred, but in many cases conduct needs to be prosecuted using the wide range of terrorism offences available to us.

“These include acts preparatory to terrorism, attending terrorist training, support for a proscribed organisation and distribution of terrorist material.”

She added that even when “we charge using ordinary criminal offences, we do so as a ‘terrorist connection’” because that allowed judges to impose stronger sentences.

Ms Hemming’s most striking comments, however, were about the demands placed on prosecutors by the “substantial increase” in terrorism cases.

Terrorism-related arrests hit a record of 304 in the year to the end of March, up 18 per cent on the previous 12 months.

There had also been a 55 per cent increase in terrorism trials in the past year, with an 86 per cent conviction rate.

Speaking at the National Security Summit, Ms Hemming said: “Much of the increase has been from [Islamic State] or similarly inspired activity, but we have also seen an increase in extreme Right-wing activity.

“We have doubled the size of our team and we are still growing; we have a recruitment campaign for more prosecutors being launched shortly to help us deal with further increases.”

Ms Hemming also gave an insight into the scale of social media evidence being gathered to bring terrorists to justice. She said that “most, if not all, cases involve substantial amounts of digital material and this has been growing significantly over the last few years”.

She added: “The average terrorist case has around four terabytes of material — the more significant ones have over 10 terabytes and the biggest ones, well in excess of 20.

“To give you some concept of quantity, you would need about 125 empty iPads with no apps or content to store four terabytes of material.”

Her comments follow the disclosure by Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the country’s top counter-terrorism officer, that police have used social media and other digital evidence to prepare prosecutions against many of the British terrorist fighters abroad.

Last week, Mr Hill suggested some returning Islamic State fighters should be reintegrated into society, rather than prosecuted, as they were “naive”.

Mr Rowley said it had so far not been possible to gather enough material to charge all returning fighters. Today, he told the summit greater co-operation was needed from tech firms, which should follow the example of banks.

He said: “The relationship with the social media sector is positive... but they are not always as enthusiastic about tipping us off when they spot somebody of concern. If we don’t tackle that then the ungoverned overseas — those parts of countries that are in a parlous state as we have seen in Syria and northern Iraq — those ungoverned locations can be connected to our communities through the online world.”

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