Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

My Lords, this case, terrible as it is, shows the fine line that can exist at times between mental illness and terrorist offences, particularly where a single person is involved. Prevent has struggled at times when police officers are trying to make decisions, based on intelligence or factual evidence, when mental illness is involved. I wonder whether the Minister might look at the unit in the Metropolitan Police called the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, may consider it. It was created in 2006 and has about 20 people in it. It was designed to protect royalty against people who become fixated on them. It is led by psychologists and psychiatrists. It makes a medical assessment of the threat, rather than just a criminal assessment as a police officer might do. It has police officers and mental health nurses who are able to access data from the health service as well as from the police. That balanced approach can be quite helpful. Sometimes, the way forward might be treatment, sometimes it should be criminal investigation with the consequences that might follow. This process has been quite well established for about 20 years, but it has never extended beyond royalty-fixated threat assessment. I wonder whether we all might learn from it.