Counter Terrorism Policing

Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) is the network of police forces in the United Kingdom that investigates terrorism. It is not a statutory body. The National Police Chiefs' Council lists a "Section 22a agreement," a collaboration agreement under section 22A of the Police Act 1996, among its pages on the network.¹

Structure

"Around the UK there are eleven regional counter terrorism units (CTUs) and intelligence units (CTIUs), which collaborate daily to confront the threat from terrorism." At the centre is Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters, which "devises policy and strategy, coordinates national projects and programmes, and provides a single national Counter Terrorism Policing voice," with an operations centre and a National CBRN Centre.² The regional units and their forces are:²

• CTP Scotland: Police Scotland
• CTP North East: West Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham, Humberside, Northumbria, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire
• CTP North West: Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Cumbria, the Isle of Man, Lancashire and Merseyside
• CTP Wales: South Wales, Dyfed Powys, Gwent and North Wales
• CTP West Midlands: West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia
• CTP South West: Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
• CTP East Midlands: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire
• CTP Eastern: Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk
• CTP South East: Thames Valley, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex
• CTP London: the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police
• Northern Ireland: the Police Service of Northern Ireland

Funding

The Home Office funds the network through the annual police funding settlement. Counter-terrorism policing funding rose from 564 million pounds in the year ending March 31, 2016, to 1,160 million pounds in the year ending March 31, 2026, and is set at up to 1,212 million pounds, including counter-terrorism pensions, for the year ending March 31, 2027, an increase of 648 million pounds (114.9 percent) in nominal terms since 2016. The smallest annual increase, one million pounds, came in the year ending March 2018 and the largest, 132 million pounds, in the year ending March 2026.³

Cases

On February 20, 2019, officers of the Eastern region stopped Jacek Tchorzewski, 18, at Luton Airport under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 as he was about to board a flight to Poland. His telephone held terrorist manuals and bomb-making guides; he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to ten counts under section 58 of the act and was sentenced on September 20, 2019, to four years.⁴

Harry Vaughan, a student at Tiffin School, was arrested on June 19, 2019, in a CTP investigation into Fascist Forge, an online forum. He pleaded guilty to 14 terrorism offences and two counts of possessing indecent images and was sentenced at the Old Bailey in November 2020 by Mr Justice Sweeney to two years' detention suspended for two years.⁵

In July 2019 Devon and Cornwall Police and CTP South West arrested a boy in Cornwall who had posted online about building a firearm. He was identified as the head of FKD_GB, the British cell of Feuerkrieg Division, which he had joined at 14, and was sentenced at the Old Bailey in February 2021 to a 24-month youth rehabilitation order. The Crown Prosecution Service called him Britain's youngest terrorist.⁶ The Home Office, acting on CTP's recommendation, proscribed Feuerkrieg Division on July 13, 2020, with effect from July 17, by SI 2020/743.⁷

Ben John, a criminology student at De Montfort University, was arrested after an eleven-month investigation by the East Midlands unit, which found a hard drive holding the Anarchy Cookbook, white supremacist and antisemitic literature, and material of the Order of Nine Angles. He was convicted at Leicester Crown Court on August 12, 2021, under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.⁸ Ashley Podsiad-Sharp, a prison officer at HMP Armley in Leeds, was investigated by CTP, convicted at Sheffield Crown Court of possessing terrorist material, and sentenced on August 31, 2023, by Judge Jeremy Richardson KC to eight years' imprisonment and five years' extended licence.⁹

CTP became aware of Cameron Finnigan, a member of the 764 network, in March 2024 through intelligence about his online activity. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey on January 16, 2025, by Mr Justice Jay to six years' imprisonment and three years' extended licence.¹⁰ CTP's statement on the sentencing described 764 as "an immense threat," with a "Satanic extremist" ideology and "militant accelerationist (extreme right wing)" characteristics.¹¹