Terrorist police warn parents about extreme online content

A top counter-terrorism police official has called on parents to “be vigilant” about the excessive content children view online.

Assistant Chief Constable Wendy Gunney believes lone extremists “nurtured” by violent material on social media are now posing “one of the biggest threats”.

The head of counter-terrorism policing in Wales warned parents not to be “complacent” about the risks.

This comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer Said terrorism has “changed” After Cardiff-born Axel Rudakubana was convicted of the murder of three young girls in Southport.

Rudakubana sentenced At least 52 years in prison Thursday, where the judge said he planned to kill as many people as he could.

Mr Justice Goose said Rudakubana’s actions “do not meet the definition of an act of terrorism within the meaning of the statute”, but said his conviction was “comparable in severity to terrorist killings”.

Earlier this week Sir Keir said there was a “new threat” of “extreme violence perpetrated by lonely, misfit, young men in their bedrooms”.

In a wide-ranging interview before the prime minister’s announcement, Ms. Ghani said violent content on the Internet was contributing to “self-initiated terrorism.”

“The risk of someone becoming a self-motivated terrorist, so actually just taking that material and making up your mind about something, and going out and taking action that is not organized or coordinated by a broader group of people – that’s probably This is one of the biggest risks we face in the UK at the moment,” Ms Guiney said.

He said that the ideology of some criminals is now “not particularly clear”.

The Prime Minister said the law could be changed “to recognize this new and dangerous threat”.

Rudakubana was mentioned three times UK government counter-insurgency programBut it failed to recognize the threat it posed.

An initial review in the summer found that Prevent had failed to characterize Rudakubana as a serious threat because he had not demonstrated commitment to a single radical ideology.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said there had been too much emphasis on the absence of ideology.

Official Home Office figures show that 36% of all Prevent referrals in 2023-2024 were to people with no ideology.

This proportion is much higher than among people with extreme right-wing or Islamist ideologies.

Of all prevention referrals in 2023-2024:

• 36% were related to individuals in whom vulnerability was present but no ideology

• 19% far right

• 13% regarding Islamic fundamentalism

• 2% for concerns regarding school massacres

In her first interview since taking up her role, Ms Gunny said that teenagers aged 15 and 16 were being arrested in Wales for terrorist offences, including possession of terrorist material and knives.

Ms Ganni told the case of Alex Hutton, 19, from Swansea Highlights “very prevalent” danger of “self-initiation” Extremism.

Hutton held extreme racist, transphobic and homophobic views and pleaded guilty to terrorist offenses and assault after attacking a transgender woman, leaving a trainer imprinted on her face.

Hutton distributed extreme videos encouraging and glorifying terrorism.

He was sentenced to more than five years in prison in 2024.

Ms Gunni, who also oversees organized crime policing, said it is “very difficult to predict” the moment when a young person makes the decision to commit a terrorist act from viewing extremist material in their bedroom.

He said parents sometimes become “complacent” about the extreme content their children view.

“We’ve seen parents become complacent, perhaps not as intrusive in their children’s online activity as they should be,” he said.

Ms Ganni said “you would like to think” that parents would “intervene” when items such as daggers, Nazi memorabilia and banned terrorism manuals start appearing in children’s bedrooms.

He urged all parents to “remain conscious of the issues”.