Responsibility for dissuading young people from getting involved in extremist activity has to lie with parents

National Policing Lead for Prevent, Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said:

"The legislation recently passed by Parliament makes the Prevent programme a statutory responsibility for schools, colleges, local authorities and the NHS. The police service will play its part but the prime responsibility for dissuading young people from getting involved in extremist activity has to lie with parents, families and carers.

“When police officers have specific intelligence or concerns about a young person we work with schools, families and other agencies to protect that young person. We have done so on many occasions. The police do not have the capacity to routinely work with every school in the country, therefore we have to target our efforts where concerns are identified.

“I agree that more needs to be done to support parents to understand the nature of the threat from extreme material on the internet but this is as much about violently and sexually extreme material as that relating to foreign conflicts"