Coroner criticises Fishmongers’ Hall intelligence-sharing

Judge Mark Lucraft QC has said it was ‘very unsatisfactory’ that information the Fishmongers' Hall attacker was likely to carry out an assault was not shared.

Lucraft, who acted as the inquest coroner, has made 22 recommendations in his prevention of death report, urging the security services to work more closely with other agencies.

Convicted terrorist Usman Khan fatally stabbed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones at the London venue in November 2019.

An inquiry into the attack has led Lucraft to say that the case gave ‘cause for concern that counter terrorism police may be in possession of intelligence or information which may be useful to the management of an offender’ by the public protection panel, MAPPA, ‘but that such intelligence or information may not be brought to the knowledge of, or taken into account by, MAPPA agencies’.

Lucraft said that the Home Office and Ministry of Justice needed to consider how intelligence known only to the Security Service MI5 could be taken into account by the MAPPA system.

In his report he said: "A very unsatisfactory situation arose whereby there was a strand of intelligence received shortly prior to Usman Khan's release from prison that he intended to carry out an attack but the MAPPA panel participants were in the main entirely ignorant of that intelligence.

"This case gives cause for concern that counter-terrorism police may be in possession of intelligence or information which may be useful to the management of an offender by the MAPPA panel, but that such intelligence or information may not be brought to the knowledge of or taken into account by MAPPA agencies.

"This issue should be addressed, preferably by ensuring that a single police officer from any covert investigation is responsible and accountable for ensuring that intelligence and information is properly shared and taken into account."

The inquests earlier this year found failings by the police, the Probation Service and MI5 contributed to the deaths of Merritt and Jones. The jury concluded that both were unlawfully killed.