A team of police officers with experience of handling major incidents should be “parachuted in” to deal with potential terrorist attacks wherever they occur around the UK, according to one the country’s leading police chiefs.

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter, who moved to the British Transport Police after a long career with the Metropolitan Police, said that events such as the terrorist attacks and threats on London last July were outside the experience of most officers, and needed to be handled by experts.

Speaking at the recent Infrastructure Security Conference in London, Mr Trotter told delegates that officers could often attain a senior rank without ever having dealt with a major public incident, and that it would be unfair to them – and to the public – to take control of events such as terrorist attacks.

“You don’t suddenly get the experience to deal with events like this, just because you get a rank,” said Mr Trotter. “In my view, we’ve got to get a cadre of people with the expertise to deal with incidents such as this. We need quality people on a whole range of issues, ready to go, and we can parachute them in around the country, wherever they are needed.

“That view may not be shared everywhere, but this is too serious to mess around with,” added Mr Trotter, who played a key role in the response to the London bombings last July.

Mr Trotter underlined the level of experience within the British Transport Police (BTP) in dealing with terrorism, from the early days of the IRA threat to the current “new normality” of counter terrorism. The force has its own unique threat ‘matrix’ to deal with reports of suspect devices or claims that bombs have been planted. In the 15 years from 1991 to 2006, the BTP handled terrorist threats on 9,000 locations; only 57 of those were graded as ‘category one’ incidents, of which 35 turned out to involve devices or explosives, a record which Mr Trotter described as “extraordinary”.

He also emphasised the change in nature of the terrorist threat, from the old days of so-called “10p terrorism” – where the IRA and other organisations would make telephone threats claiming that a device had been planted, in an effort to cause maximum disruption – to the current counter terror environment, where the threats could now include suicide bombers, incidents involving multiple scenes and mass casualties, and greater levels of public anxiety.

But while he warned that attacks like those in London on July 7 “could really happen again, and we need to be ready for it”, he also cautioned against calls for the introduction of airline-style security checks on the rail and underground system.

“If, for example, you are going to get the 7.30am train from Reading to London every morning, you are not going to get to the station an hour earlier to catch it,” said Mr Trotter. “And if you had airline security at Oxford Circus, we would shut the place – it’s just not possible. However, where we have an intelligence-led operation, we can put the appropriate extra security measures in place.”

Right......... these para's right............ how they going to work in london? All the tall buildings and such..... take off from heathrow and land in hyde park and march the rest of the way??????

What about jet packs

Atleast they did call, not just hit a button

Isn't this what the SAS is for?

Your thoughts OBP

My thoughts are that someone with rank was thinking out loud again and its been blown out of all proportion.

Ha ha ha ha