Families of the victims of last year’s London bombings criticised the government on Thursday for failing to see the attack coming, as two reports into the bloody events of July 7 were made public.
Many relatives of the 52 people killed by four suicide bombers were scathing about the reports — one by the government and another by an influential Parliamentary committee — and demanded a full public inquiry into the attacks on London’s transport network.
They said it was vital to learn as many lessons as possible from Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity to prevent an even deadlier repeat.
The official reports cleared the security services of any failings in not stopping the bombers — all Islamist extremists raised in Britain — and underlined the huge task faced by them in foiling such plots.
But Nader Mozakka (50), whose wife Behnaz died in one of the subway train blasts, said the documents had produced “useless information”.
“The government is running scared of doing anything that might go down badly with the Muslim community,” he said. “At the same time, people are being radicalised left, right and centre.”
Stephen Vaughan was a close friend of Sam Badham and her partner, Lee Harris, who were also killed in the blast at Russell Square.
“Probably the most important thing is that we need to help the Muslim community to find out where religious extremism emerges from and why it emerges, so that we can all tackle it,” he said. “We want to know where this came from in detail so that those communities can work to stop this sort of thing happening again.”
Grahame Russell, whose son Philip (28) died in the bus bombing in Tavistock Square, said the government should clamp down on extremists “bending young minds”.
He added that he thought the security services were lacking in resources, a problem identified in Thursday’s reports.
“I hear stories that there are 20 agents following a thousand suspects. If that is the case, we have got no chance, absolutely no chance of ever controlling or stopping this sort of thing happening again,” Russell said.
“In my heart of hearts I don’t believe they could have stopped it,” he said.
Diana Gorodi, whose sister died in the bombings, also criticised the lack of anti-terror resources.
“If we can afford a war in Iraq, surely we can afford to get protected in England,” she told BBC radio.
She added: “It’s impossible for me to believe that those four individuals acted on their own and had no links with any terrorist organisation or any kind of radicals that were picked up by the intelligence earlier on.”
Chris Agwu, a cousin of Ojara Ikeagwu, who died in the Russell Square attack, said: “There is really nothing that can stop a determined terrorist. Some people were suggesting increasing surveillance, but we have to balance civil liberties against some of those suggestions.
“My strong view is that it wouldn’t be possible for a higher level of surveillance to exist without fundamentally changing the way society is, infringing civil liberties to an extent I don’t think the public would be prepared for.”
Daniel Biddle (27) lost his legs and an eye in the Edgware Road bombing and is still receiving hospital treatment.
“To do a report a year on, it doesn’t help anybody. To turn round and say no one was at fault, it doesn’t help the survivor to get past it,” he told BBC News. “To me, there’s no justice because the person who’s at fault killed himself when he set the bomb off. I can’t get a sense of justice from any report. It doesn’t enable me to move on.” — AFP