Scotland Yard’s anti-terror chief Walton praise Muslims for helping keep London safe

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Thursday 21 Jan 2016 - 14:12 Makkah mean time-11-4-1437 Scotland Yard’s anti-terror chief Richard Walton. Image from Evening Standard London, (IINA) - Scotland Yard’s anti-terror chief on Wednesday praised Muslims in London for coming forward to help the fight against extremism, saying only the support of communities could foil attacks inspired by extremist ideology, Evening Standard online news reported. Commander Richard Walton said police were receiving more calls from young Muslims as well as “mums and dads” concerned about issues their children spoke about at home. Commander Walton, who retires today after 30 years in the Met, insisted that the anti-radicalization Prevent programme was working. He said: “We have had increasing support from the Muslim community, with a lot of young Muslims coming forward to help and more Muslim leaders standing up and refuting the extremist narrative. “We still have Muslim families, mums and dads, ringing us on our anti-terrorist hotline, saying they are concerned about what they may have heard their child talking about. If we are told early enough we can intervene.” It was not inevitable that London would suffer another terror attack, he said, but added: “We need the support of Londoners to do this. We depend on the cooperation of communities in London. "This is probably the most diverse city in the world and we cannot be everywhere, we depend on people trusting us and coming forward to tell us of their concerns. “Terrorism is not inevitable. We can have 10 more years of no terrorism but we need public support for that. “You can only defeat attacks inspired by the ideology of IS with the community behind you because you are not necessarily going to pick that up from sophisticated intercepts or covert means. “We often say that every police officer is a counter-terrorist officer but I would argue that every member of the public can help keep this country and this city safe.” The commander, who served in the Anti-Terrorist Branch during the IRA bombing campaign of the Nineties, said counter-terror officers had been shocked by the scale of outrages in France in the past year and were working “day in and day out” to  prevent similar attacks here. He said one difference between France and Britain was the extent to which UK police engaged with communities, and officers in schools were “working to prevent terrorism at the earliest opportunity”. SM/IINA