Former security chief says anti-terror bollards 'useless' if not properly enforced

KentOnline / KMTV

Chris Phillips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office joined the Kent Morning Show to react to KentOnline's investigation.

Transcript

00:00Chris, welcome to the Kent Morning Show, it's good to have you on today. You spent

00:04years keeping the nation safe from terrorism, so what's the first thing that

00:08goes through your head when you hear about a security system like the

00:11bollards that are in place in Canterbury?

00:14Good morning, yes, it's so

00:16disappointing that huge amounts of money have been spent on protecting the public

00:22and then because they're not operated properly, they're not being used properly,

00:26that effectively is wiped out, it's such a waste of time and money.

00:30I mean we've seen instances of, and it's shocking to think about, of cars being

00:36driven into crowds even as early as this this month over in Germany.

00:41These sort of systems are crucial in today's modern age, aren't they?

00:46Well certainly you have iconic locations and of course Canterbury is an iconic

00:52location and iconic locations are being attacked, whether it's Christmas markets,

00:56whether it's New Orleans, in Bourbon Street, these locations are chosen by

01:01terrorists because they are iconic and they want to use vehicles to knock

01:06people over. The simple fact is that the risk is there, someone has obviously

01:12realised that the area needs to be protected, should be protected, and

01:17enormous amounts of money have been spent putting in a system which would

01:21work, let's be quite frank, if you're going to put that system in it should

01:24work, but it won't work if the barriers are down when they should be up.

01:29Yeah that's right, God forbid an attack was ever to happen here in the country

01:33or anywhere for that matter, but this investigation has found that bollards

01:37were left down for hours, council workers were letting vehicles through without

01:41doing sort of proper checks. What's the sort of first red flags from your

01:45experience of a system like this not being, you know, not really doing its

01:50job properly? Well usually it's down to the operation and the operators and it's

01:56not always their fault, let's be quite frank. Quite often operators

02:01are not given enough time or training. There should be a system, there should be

02:05strict rules for who can come in and who can go out, when they can go in and when

02:10they can go out, and of course the system should be in protect mode most of

02:15the time, unless that's been agreed otherwise. So it'll be

02:21interesting to see what the council's response is as to why the system's not

02:25being used properly. If it's down to a lack of resources, manpower, womanpower,

02:30whatever, then that needs to be addressed if you're going to make

02:34use of the system to protect people. Canterbury City Council told us that

02:38protocols are being tightened up, but it does kind of make you wonder if it's

02:43even worth it, if protocols are having to be tightened up in the first

02:46place. Does that mean that they weren't protected before, even after all

02:50this money was spent? Well I see this time and time again, it comes down

02:56to resources and human resources are the most expensive part. Actually putting the

03:00system in is one cost, but actually running it is another altogether, and

03:05quite often that is the resource that gets taken away when people are trying

03:09to save money. And whether the numbers of people that run the system are right,

03:14that needs to be looked at. But let's be quite honest, you know, if a vehicle does

03:20decide to run through the town centre, the city centre, then you know

03:27all these costs are nothing compared to human lives. How do you go about when

03:31you implement a system like this, striking the balance between keeping the

03:35aesthetics of an area, keeping a place you know attractive for people to come to,

03:39and not just sort of feel like they're in a fortress, and actually making sure

03:43security is as tight as it can be? Well interestingly the UK leads on this, and

03:49we've got a number of companies that build these types of protective

03:53measures that actually fit into the street scene, and we're very good at it.

03:58You know, you see it right across the country, and not always will you

04:02notice the protection measures that are there. That's all fine and good,

04:06but you do at the end of the day have to have some hard stuff, really hard stuff,

04:12in the right places to protect against a ramming attack, and they've got to be up

04:17if you want them to work. And just finally before we wrap up, obviously this

04:21is Canterbury City Council who have told us that they will be tightening

04:24things up, but for all councils and all sort of organisations that have to be

04:28thinking about security, what's the sort of main piece of advice to them to make

04:32sure that the people that are using their systems or walking through their

04:35high streets are being protected? Well you do have to understand that

04:40invariably it's iconic locations that are being attacked. Okay we haven't had

04:46any attacks in the UK for a little while, and that's great, but they are happening

04:50around the world, and as we said they were happening in Christmas markets in

04:54Germany, in Bourbon Street in New Orleans, they are taking place these attacks.

05:00Across France we've had a number of terrorist attacks, it will happen at some

05:04stage, and the important thing is that you've done everything you can to

05:07protect the people that use your site. Now that can't always be with huge

05:13protective security measures, but you can take simple actions to stop vehicles

05:18from being able to knock people over, or from people being able to use

05:23vehicles as a weapon, and I think it's incumbent upon anyone who who looks

05:27after city centres in particular, but iconic sites, that they are doing

05:32everything they can to protect them, and if they've got measures in place like

05:35we've seen in Canterbury, they need to be being used in the way that they were

05:40meant to be used, to protect as many people as possible. Chris Phillips, thank

05:45you very much for joining us on the Kent Morning Show.

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