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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘I shouldn't have to fight for answers': David Amess's daughter on the MP's murder and her fury at his friends and colleagues
The last time Katie Amess saw her dad, the Conservative MP Sir David Amess, he was dropping her at Heathrow for her flight home to Los Angeles. Usually, she would cry when they said goodbye, but this time neither were sad – they were both excited. In six weeks, Katie would be back for her wedding. 'It was going to be in the House of Commons and my dad could not wait to walk me down the aisle,' she says. 'He'd been practising, taking my arm, walking me around. We joked about it – we were calling it the 'royal wedding'. At the airport, we hugged goodbye and he kissed me on both cheeks. I skipped off thinking the next time I saw him would be the best day of my life.' Instead, just four weeks later, her father was murdered at his surgery, stabbed 21 times by an Islamic State sympathiser. He was buried in the suit he was going to wear to the wedding. The music planned for walking Katie down the aisle – Pachelbel's Canon – was instead played as his coffin was carried into the church. The murder of David Amess in October 2021, while serving his constituency in a church hall in Leigh-on-Sea, sent shock waves across the country – and the details that have since emerged should have deepened the outrage and furthered the questions. Amess's killer, Ali Harbi Ali, was a once bright, motivated teenager planning to study medicine who had self-radicalised during Syria's civil war. The teachers at his Croydon school had noticed – one described it as a light going out and that his 'eyes were dead'. Ali's attendance fell, his grades plummeted and attempts to talk to him only raised more concerns, leading the school to contact Prevent, the government-led counter-terrorism strategy designed to identify and deradicalise extremists. One home visit was made, followed by one brief meeting between Ali and an 'intervention provider' in a McDonald's. Conversation was limited to two subjects: whether western music and student loans were unlawful in Islam. Ali was deemed a 'pleasant and informed young man'. (He later said: 'I just knew to nod my head and say yes and they would leave me alone afterwards and they did.') There was no follow-up, no further consultations or contact with his referring teachers. There was no monitoring. Despite the atrocity Ali went on to commit, Katie believes there has been little scrutiny of any of the above, no accountability or consequences for the anonymous officials involved and no requirement to give a public account of their actions and lessons learned. For almost four years, Katie, on behalf of the Amess family, has pushed for an inquiry. Partly as a result of this pressure, the Home Office commissioned Lord Anderson, the interim Prevent commissioner, to produce a rapid review of the case in order to identify whether questions remain unanswered. It was published last week and concluded: 'Though the information available on [Ali's] case is not complete and likely never will be,' the 'unhappy story' of his engagement with Prevent had been 'squeezed almost dry'. Katie doesn't agree. 'I'm not going to give up,' she says. 'All we want is for someone to say: 'We're sorry. This is what happened, these are the mistakes made and this is what we're doing to make sure it never happens again.' I shouldn't have to fight for answers.' Born in Basildon to an electrician father and a dressmaker mother, David Amess was a working-class, Catholic Conservative and had been an Essex MP for 38 years when he was murdered. He was approaching his 70th birthday – on that last airport trip with Katie, she had broached the subject of retirement. 'He didn't want to retire any time soon,' she says. 'He felt he had so much left to do.' Having an MP father was all Katie had ever known, but Amess was not an absent figure, away at Westminster. He was committed to his constituency with no ambitions for higher office. 'When I was young, I used to ask: 'Do you think you could be prime minister?' He'd say: 'Absolutely not!'' For Katie, the second of five children, all born within seven years, he was present and fun and always loomed large in her life. 'My dad was absolutely hilarious and completely inappropriate,' she says. 'He'd do the craziest things and sometimes they were a bit dangerous.' He would booby trap the house at Halloween. He would take all five children to water parks even though he couldn't swim and would have been unable to rescue any of them. At toll booths, on family road trips, all five children were instructed to blow raspberries while he paid the operator. 'He was obsessed with animals, so we had dogs, cats, chickens, bunny rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, a goat called Tinkerbell,' says Katie. 'He wanted a small pony at one point, but Mum vetoed that. He had fish and birds in his office even though no animals were allowed, but he didn't listen to rules. At Halloween, he'd go to Westminster in full goblin outfit. At Christmas, he'd put a tree on his balcony at Westminster, which was definitely not allowed, and his whole office was lit up with flashing lights.' From the age of four, Katie accompanied him to constituency events. 'My elder brother was out playing football and my mum had my three younger sisters to look after, so I was all dressed up and dragged to garden parties and village fetes.' Later, when she moved to London for drama school – she is now an actor – she stayed in her dad's London flat. 'I'm so glad I spent all that time with him so I could just be around him and soak up what he was about,' she says. 'I never knew I wouldn't be with him for another 30 years.' Amess was very well known in his Southend West and Leigh constituency. 'He spent so much time there,' says Katie. 'Everybody knew his name and face. I've received so many messages since he died saying: 'We didn't agree with him politically, but he helped my elderly parents'; 'He got support for my disabled child'; 'He visited my sick grandma in hospital.'' In some ways, his profile and accessibility made him vulnerable. He was the face of government and easy to locate. In fact, it later emerged that Ali had worked through a list of possible victims, including Michael Gove and Keir Starmer, both of who were deemed too complicated to find. Amess – targeted because he had voted in favour of airstrikes against Islamic State – was holding a surgery. (The pinned tweet on Amess's account gave the date, place and details of how to book.) 'I always worried about Dad's safety, but I thought if anything was going to happen, it would be a punch-up from a local yob,' says Katie. 'Never in your wildest dreams would you imagine that a terrorist would go through a list and then come and murder your dad. It's just so shocking. It's still unbelievable.' In the immediate aftermath, the family were too stunned to think about inquiries or even formulate questions. Katie remembers flying straight back to the UK, walking into the family home and seeing the runner beans Amess had picked from the garden before going to surgery. 'I washed up his breakfast plates – tea and toast – from the morning it happened as well as his dinner plates from the night before and could not believe it was the last time I'd ever be doing this,' she says. 'All those times I was annoyed that he'd left his plates for me to clean when I was in his London flat for drama school. Now, I just wanted to be able to clean them one more time.' When details about Ali's history with Prevent began surfacing, the family assumed an inquiry would be announced after his trial. (In April 2022, Ali was given a whole-life sentence.) Two home secretaries – Priti Patel and Suella Braverman – assured the family that they were working on it, but their successor James Cleverly refused to meet them. Instead, there has been only a Prevent learning review, completed in February 2022. This gives a glimpse of Prevent's failures in the case – the strange decision‑making (why focus on student loans and western music only?), the lack of record-keeping, the absence of communication, returned emails or follow-up. 'I was absolutely gobsmacked when I read it,' says Katie. 'I could run Prevent better with my friends. If these are the people entrusted to save us from terrorism, we've got a huge problem.' Equally striking is the sparsity of the review. No one involved is identified or even interviewed. It's a review of secondhand accounts and the records kept (and not kept). 'The main conclusion it seems to draw is that so much has changed with Prevent, it's all been fixed, so we don't need to look any harder,' says Katie. 'If that was true, why were three little girls murdered in Southport last year?' Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, was referred to and rejected by Prevent three times. One of the questions to be asked in the Southport inquiry is whether Prevent needs a complete overhaul. 'They could have asked that question years earlier after my dad was killed and perhaps Southport wouldn't have happened,' says Katie. Campaigning hasn't been easy. Katie is based in the US and her mother, Julia, is not well – she had a stroke shortly after Ali's trial, which the family attributes to trauma and grief. The change of government briefly gave them hope. Katie and Julia had a video meeting with Yvette Cooper, the new home secretary, who told them that Amess was a great friend, their Westminster offices were next door and they used to walk to the Commons chamber together. 'We thought: 'Perfect. Now we're getting somewhere,'' says Katie. Instead, months passed. Finally, in March, in another video call, Cooper admitted there wouldn't be an inquiry. 'My mum said: 'Look me in the eyes and tell me as his friend that you think you're doing the right thing.' Yvette Cooper could not answer.' In a formal letter, Cooper explained that it was 'hard to see' how an inquiry could go beyond what had already been established in the trial, the Prevent learning review and the coroner's report, as well as the forthcoming rapid review by Lord Anderson. 'When an elected official is killed in a church hall in broad daylight by somebody the government is monitoring, there should be an inquiry – it shouldn't even be a question,' says Amess. 'This isn't a witch-hunt, but there should be some accountability. The mistakes made cost me my father, my mother's husband, a grandfather, a brother, a son. 'I don't think we'll ever recover,' she continues. 'It's my 40th birthday this month and I know I'd have flown back to England like I did every summer and my dad would have thrown me a huge party. There'd have been 40 balloons and he'd have made my friends give me 40 bumps! I want to have children, but I think: 'What sort of mother would I be now when I'm in so much trauma and heartache?' I used to think he'd be such a funny grandpa. All that has been robbed from me.' For Katie, the lack of support from Westminster after her father's decades of service is deeply painful and nonsensical, too. 'I just cannot believe the way we've been treated by his friends and colleagues,' she says. 'It's in all their interests. They are meeting the public day in, day out, so why don't they want to investigate properly and establish what would make them safer? Dad's legacy needs to be that through what happened to him, he saves other people. Please, just show some human decency. Do the right thing.' Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
UK jail escape trial reignites debate over indefinite sentences
The trial of an alleged escapee who spent hours on the roof of a high-security prison in his underpants is set to be the first time the stress caused by indeterminate sentences can be used as a legal defence. Joe Outlaw is due to stand trial on Monday for climbing on to the roof of HMP Frankland in Durham in June 2023 in protest at the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence he and others are serving. The 38-year-old has been in jail for 13 years, much of that in isolation, after receiving an IPP sentence for robbing a takeaway at gunpoint in 2011. He says he does not remember the crime because he was drunk and high on drugs. Two months before his Durham protest, Outlaw staged a 12-hour sit-in on the roof of Strangeways, HMP Manchester, where he wrote 'FREE IPPZ' in paint. He is due to be tried later for 'escape from lawful custody' in allegedly damaging the roof of Strangeways and for starting a fire in his cell as part of a suicide attempt. The case raises once again the issue of IPPs, which 2,544 prisoners were still serving in March despite the sentences being abolished in 2012. The legislation that ended what campaigners describe as a cruel system was not retrospective. A spokesperson for Reform and Rebuild, a prison advocacy group which is set to give evidence in the trial, said it was 'well overdue' for courts to take into account the stress caused by IPPs. 'This sentence has led to a lot of destructive behaviour among prisoners,' the organisation said. Cherrie Nichol, a campaigner whose brother is serving an IPP, said that under the previous Conservative government many prisoners grew 'absolutely desperate' when they were told they would not be able to be resentenced. 'There were a few of the IPP prisoners who then took their lives because they decided that they were never going to get out,' she said. 'Nobody's been resentenced yet, but we are looking at human rights. That's another battle but we will get it. We'll definitely get it because it's cruel and inhumane. I think if we don't keep fighting and jumping up and down, then it'll just be forgotten.' Campaigners have made some progress over the years, for example in shortening the licences of those released from IPPs from 10 years to three years. Nichol said this 'meant some people could go on holiday with their families and have a life again, because 10 years is a long time after you've suffered'. But she added: 'The government won't admit they're wrong. So we have to go around, trample around things delicately.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Chaotic street brawl caught on video in Cincinnati as officials probe 'breakdown of order'
Disturbing footage posted online shows the moment an unidentified man was violently attacked by an unruly mob in downtown Cincinnati in what officials are now calling a 'breakdown of order.' The viral video of the assault Friday night at the intersection of Fourth and Elm Streets started with a verbal dispute between at least two men, according to police chief Teresa Theetge. The carnage left at least two people, an unidentified male and female victim, injured, with WKRC reporting that a good Samaritan rushed them to a local hospital in the aftermath. Their conditions remain unclear as cops work to identify and arrest all of those involved. The shocking footage, originally posted to the Signal 99 Facebook page, shows an unidentified assailant attacking a man in a white t-shirt from behind. The man in the white shirt then tries to run away into the street, when the original assailant and one of his friends punch and tackle him to the ground. At that point, more people joined in on the assault, stomping on the victim for nearly a minute as he lay in the middle of the street. When the barrage of attacks temporarily stops, the victim could be seen attempting to stand - but he immediately falls over in apparent disorientation as frustrated drivers honk their horns to get the mob to move out of the way. One man could then be heard shouting, 'My man's drunk.' Moments later, an unidentified woman in a black dress could be seen trying to check on the fallen man - when another woman in the crowd grabs her and a separate man in the crowd violently punches her. The impact caused the woman to fall to he ground, with her head slamming into the concrete. It soon becomes clear that she is unconscious as blood spews from her mouth. The viral video ends with bystanders attempting to move the woman out of the street. Another video obtained by WKRC appears to show the moments leading up to the attack. It shows the man in the white t-shirt talking with the group, when he suddenly slaps a man in a red t-shirt. It also shows another man being targeted by the unruly mob. 'I am in complete disgust waking up to the viral video many of you have now seen,' Chief Theetge said on Saturday, after mayoral candidate and Vice President JD Vance's half brother reposted the video - arguing that the current administration is not doing enough to address crime in the city. 'The behavior is nothing short of cruel and absolutely unacceptable,' she continued, vowing that investigators will work 'diligently to identify every individual involved in causing harm.' Authorities have already spoken to two people seen in the video, Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Ken Kober told WKRC. 'They're doing everything they can,' he insisted. 'These investigators have been working around the clock to identify everybody that's involved, to be able to locate these people. to be able to interview them, to be able to get a true picture of exactly what occurred.' Investigators have also received tips on some of the attackers' identities, Kober revealed. 'I would ask... that the public play a part in this, because stuff like this shouldn't happen in our city, but when it does, we need people to step forward, that way we can bring these people to justice.' In separate remarks to WLWT, Kober called the violence 'disgusting.' 'What's equally disgusting is those who chose to watch and record instead of calling 911, attempting to defuse the situation or render aid.' Hamilton Township Police Chief Scott Hughes argued the video represented a 'breakdown of order, decency and accountability' Cincinnati city councilman Mark Jeffreys also described the video as 'incredibly disturbing and horrific' as well as 'downright inhumane.' He added that he has spoken with other city officials and police to work on 'finding the individuals responsible and arresting them urgently.' 'This behavior cannot stand and will not represent our city,' Jeffreys said. 'Those responsible must be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' Similarly, Hamilton Township Police Chief Scott Hughes argued on X: 'What happened on Fourth Street in Cincinnati wasn't just a fight, it was a breakdown of order, decency and accountability - caught on video and cheered on by a crowd. 'This isn't just Cincinnati's problem, it's ours too,' he said, arguing that such violent attacks do not just stay in the city because 'the perception of danger ripples across the region,' discouraging residents from visiting evens and attractions. 'Families stop going out. Businesses stop investing. and cities lose the very momentum they worked to build,' Hughes wrote. 'This video isn't just another viral moment. It's a warning shot,' he concluded. 'We can either raise our voices or watch silence fund the chaos.' Cincinnati police data released on July 21 shows that the central business district and riverfront area where the assault took place has seen a 25 percent increase in violence compared to last year. It also shows that there were 12 aggravated assaults in the city between January 1 through July 21, compared to 16 during the same time period last year.
