BRITAIN'S top anti-terror policeman warned last night that the country faces deadlier attacks that will force the police to act earlier against suspects, without the time to "feed off the crumbs of the intelligence table".
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said the public had to appreciate the current al-Qaida threat was nothing like that previously posed by the IRA and that it was pushing the police to work "at the very limits of our capacity".
More than 1
00 suspects were facing trial for terror offences, Scotland Yard's counter terrorism commander confirmed.
Delivering the inaugural Colin Cramphorn lecture in London – in memory of the West Yorkshire chief constable who died last year of cancer – he said al-Qaida networks were "large, fluid, mobile and incredibly resilient", able to survive "prolonged multi-national assault".
Last summer's alleged airliner plot was, he said, "yet another step in what seems an inexorable trend towards more ambitious and more destructive attack planning".
Mr Clarke insisted that the police and MI5 now needed to act earlier to avert disasters – even if it jeopardised eventual court proceedings.
"We can no longer wait until the terrorist is at or near the point of attack before intervening," he said.
"It might give us the strongest evidence to do so – to capture the terrorist with the gun or the bomb – but the risk to the public, in the age of suicide bombers and no-notice attacks, is simply too great."
He also defended the plethora of new anti-terror charges added to the statute book in recent years, including increasing the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 28 days before a suspect must be either charged or released.
He said his support for 90-day detention was based on dealing with the modern terrorist rather than political considerations
"The Common Law of England was not designed to defend us against people who wish to poison or irradiate the public," Mr Clarke told his audience.
He described new regional counter terrorism units as "a major step forward" that would "definitely increase our ability to respond to the intelligence generated by the Security Service, and to investigate acts of terrorism".
"Colin Cramphorn was one of the first to see what would be needed in the future, and the nascent Counter Terrorist Unit in West Yorkshire is testimony to his vision," Mr Clarke said.
More work needed to be done in communities to establish and maintain trust, enhance the flow of incoming intelligence and support imams who will actively counter preachers of hate.
"The current terrorist threat is of such a scale and intractability that we must not only defeat the men (for it is predominantly men) who plot and carry out appalling acts of violence, we must also find a way of defeating the ideas that drive them," he said.
In his speech, attended by the current chief constable of West Yorkshire Sir Norman Bettison and Mr Cramphorn's widow and daughter, Mr Clarke also paid tribute to Mr Cramphorn, describing him as "a man of enormous knowledge of his chosen profession" who had "an instinctive feel for policing" and was "a master at understanding the complexities of policing".
