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Fishmongers’ terror: Jail charity failed safety course

By Jake Ryan HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

THE creators of a controversial prison education programme that worked with London Bridge terrorist Usman Khan did not pass a training course after clashing with organisers about staff safety.

Cambridge University academics Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow attended a course hosted by the US Inside-Out programme, forerunner to other schemes including their Learning Together project, in 2015.

But they walked out after rejecting Inside-Out’s policies of banning contact with prisoners outside the programme. The US scheme has a near total ban on supporting terrorists after release from jail.

Inside-Out founder Lori Pompa told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Though some of the ways that Learning Together describes its philosophy and goals are similar to the underpinnings of Inside-Out, what they do and how they do it seems to contrast fundamentally with the way that Inside-Out operates.’

Learning Together decided that it would work with released terrorists, including Khan, 28. He murdered Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, during a Learning Together event at Fishmongers’ Hall in London in November 2019.

An inquest jury last month found that failings by the police, probation service and MI5 contributed to the unlawful killings of the two graduates.

After the verdict, Ms Jones’s family criticised Dr Armstrong and Dr Ludlow for the ‘scant regard they had for the fundamental safety of their staff’.

The inquest heard that Learning Together often did not know details of prisoners’ offending backgrounds and staff did not receive training on handling dangerous inmates.

John Podmore, professor of sociology at Durham University, which works with Inside-Out, said: ‘InsideOut sets out that there should be no contact outside the programme. But Cambridge just believed they could do it their own way.’

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