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