A programme that educated prisoners has been dropped after the 2019 Fishmonger’s Hall terrorist attack.
The event, which marked the fifth anniversary of the prisoner education scheme Learning Together, saw two innocent people killed by convicted terrorist Usman Khan.
An inquest into the deaths of Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, was critical of the programme’s failure to recognise Khan’s threat, and a Cambridge University review has recommended the scheme should end.
Khan, who was shot dead by armed police on nearby London Bridge, was regarded as a “poster boy” for the Learning Together programme due to his reformed character and involvement in a number of its courses while at Whitemoor high security prison. He was even included in a promotional video at an earlier event after he was released.
Khan spent eight years in jail for plotting to set up a terror training camp in Pakistan and on his release in December 2018, he was assessed as being a “very high risk of serious harm” to the public.
The coroner in the inquests into the killings, Mark Lucraft QC, said Learning Together and the University of Cambridge had not given consideration to the risks of placing serious offenders alongside young students during courses.
Mr Lucraft also highlighted other areas of concern, saying It was “a matter of concern” that no formal risk assessment was carried out for the Learning Together event, and recommended that academic events attended by serious offenders should be subject to “proper formal risk assessment”.
He also expressed concern that “a major event could be held by a University at a livery company hall in London without clear communication of the fact that it would be attended by serving and recently released serious offenders”. Consideration should be given to requiring universities to tell venues about “high risk features of events”.
Dave Merritt, Jack’s father, told the Guardian “it is sad the programme will not continue”, but noted the university and course leaders “ailed in their safeguarding responsibilities towards their staff and students, by failing to carry out any risk assessments of potentially dangerous individuals such as Khan.”
During the inquest into the deaths of Mr Merritt and Miss Jones in 2021, Mr Merritt’s mother said: “Jack Merritt was a good person. Jack was a force for good in the world, someone who made other people’s lives better for knowing him.
“We are hugely proud of who Jack was and what he stood for. His death was a tragedy but his life was a triumph.”
Henry Pitchers QC, for the Jones family, said: “She (Miss Jones) should be defined as someone who battled to improve the lives of others in several spheres and was driven to make real changes into the world.
“The positive impact Saskia had on so many people in challenging situations provided a valley of light for them to seek hope and a way forward.”
The university’s vice-chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope said: “The Learning Together programme helped change many lives for the better. But the London Bridge tragedy caused unimaginable grief. As a result, an independent review recommended that the programme be halted.”
