Spy chiefs on alert for London Bridge copycats

Hussain was a close friend of Khan, although the police said that there was no information linking him to the London Bridge attack.

Whitehall sources said that there was “very likely to be increased scrutiny of these men” but would not discuss any details of what the additional measures would entail.

Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, announced that his department would be reviewing the cases of a wider group of a “few hundred people” who might not have committed terrorist offences but hold extremist views and they could be detained as a result. He said that people on early release would not be allowed to attend public events such as that held at London Bridge on Friday.

Responding to claims that the attack has been politicised, Mr Buckland told Today on Radio 4: “We need to pause and get the tone right but public protection has to be at the heart of every government and I make no apology for that.”

Another freed member of the cell, Mohibur Rahman, has since been jailed for life after MI5 uncovered his role in a subsequent terrorist murder plot.

The Times has learnt that Khan was freed a year ago despite being assessed as posing a risk of serious harm to the public. He was placed on the highest level of public protection, requiring him to wear a GPS tag with restrictions on whom he could meet and what gatherings he could attend.

He had to obtain special permission to travel to London for a prison rehabilitation conference and seized the opportunity to carry out the murderous rampage that he intended would end in his “martyrdom”.

Officers were out scouring the bridge yesterday

YUI MOK/PA

As the investigation into the killings continued:

● The second person killed by Khan was named as Saskia Jones, 23, who like the other victim, Jack Merritt, 25, was involved with Cambridge University’s Learning Together programme for prisoners.

● Commodore Toby Williamson, chief executive of Fishmongers’ Hall, where the attack began, praised his staff for fighting back. “It is extraordinary things done by ordinary people,” he said.

● Responses to the attack dominated election campaigning with the prime minister ordering a review of the cases of 74 convicted terrorists released on licence and blaming the last Labour government for the “repulsive” early release of terrorists; Labour hit back at spending cuts and said that public protection could not be done on the cheap.

● Prison experts cast doubt on the rigour and effectiveness of prison deradicalisation courses after Khan was revealed to have attended several. One said that some prisoners regarded them as a “box-ticking exercise”.

Khan and his former accomplices were subject to security monitoring, as with any released terrorist prisoner, but it is unlikely that any would have been under round-the-clock scrutiny because of the vast resources required for physical surveillance.

All the men must adhere to licence conditions, which give the authorities opportunities to monitor their activity and pick up signals of extremist activity. Khan, however, outwitted all the precautionary measures.

The investigation into his attack has involved the examination of his digital devices and interviews with his friends and family.

The early assessment is understood to be that Khan was acting alone and wore a hoax suicide bomb vest because he wanted to be shot.

Investigators will want to be sure, however, that there was no trigger for his actions before they conclude that he was a “lone actor”. Possible causes could be through contact with another person or a reaction to an event.

Khan was part of a terrorist conspiracy in 2012 that linked cells in London, Stoke-on-Trent and Cardiff. The main thrust of the plot was to carry out attacks on the London Stock Exchange and against Mr Johnson.

Khan, then aged 20, pleaded guilty to a plan to create a training camp in Kashmir for young British jihadists, who would be sent back to the UK equipped to carry out terrorist attacks. The group had links to the radical preacher Anjem Choudary and was inspired by the Yemeni-American preacher Anwar al-Awlaki and his al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group.

Five of the nine at the original trial wrote to the judge claiming they had repented their views and wanted to enrol on deradicalisation programmes.

Jack Merritt’s father, David, retweeted an article yesterday attacking Mr Johnson and the home secretary Priti Patel for “trying to make political capital out of a tragedy that has grown out of Tory cuts”. The family said that Mr Merritt “would not want this terrible, isolated incident to be used as a pretext by the government for introducing even more draconian sentences on prisoners, or for detaining people in prison for longer than necessary”.

Criminology graduate who applied to join police
The second victim killed in the London Bridge terror attack studied at Cambridge and had ambitions to join the police force (Fariha Karim writes).

Saskia Jones, 23, was a volunteer with the Learning Together criminal justice programme and had applied for a place on a police graduate recruitment programme.

A graduate of Anglia Ruskin University, she produced academic work exploring how police forces had “failed and continue to fail to protect victims of sexual violence”.

Her family said that Ms Jones, who completed a master’s in criminology from the University of Cambridge, had applied for the police graduate programme “wishing to specialise in victim support”. Olivia Smith, a lecturer in criminology and social policy at Loughborough University, said that she was “one of those students [who] makes you so proud to be in this job”. She added: “Saskia’s dissertation was so good that I cried with pride when I marked it.”