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The man who stabbed Sir David Amess 21 times on an October day last year was an Islamic State fanatic who had become radicalised.

Ali Harbi Ali had researched other targets before deciding to kill Sir David. At one stage he planned to attack government minister Michael Gove.

Ali wanted to die a martyr and be shot dead by police after the murder in Leigh on Sea. He told the court that he wasn’t sorry he had killed Sir David, because the MP had voted for Syrian airstrikes.

Ali was part of the so-called Prevent strategy – which aims to identify people who have become radicalised and may cause harm – and stop them. Giving evidence, Ali said he’d only had one meeting with police when he was supposed to have two.

He said they asked him his views on the government and about his use of social media. "I just nodded and they left me alone after that", he told the court.

So – is Britain’s system for identifying potential terrorists strong enough? Ali was able to research potential targets, buy a large knife and then travel to Essex to commit the murder. Why wasn’t he stopped?

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Essex speaks to Dr Usama Hasan, a senior analysist in the Extremism Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change who works with counter terror agencies like Prevent, and Dr Elisa Orofino from Anglia Ruskin University. She's the academic lead for extremism and counter terrorism. She specialises in the radicalisation of Muslims in the West, and she has been interviewed by the Commission for Countering Extremism regarding Prevent.

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