by Sarah J Palmer

Created on: April 27, 2008

If it was so easy to spot a terrorist that we just needed a checklist to recognize one we wouldn't need a police force or army. I think a list should be drawn up straightaway by our respective governments because it would save us thousands of pounds in tax! And should such a list exist to enable Joe Public to successfully spot the Lesser-Known Terrorist one has to inquire as to what the correct etiquette would be in approaching him or her? After all one doesn't want them to feel like an isolated minority group, I'm sure there is an Equal Opportunities Unit out there somewhere that wants us to treat them as an accepted and integral part of our diverse community, they are human after all!

In all seriousness, do I know how to spot a terrorist? The answer is a resounding No. I've grown up amidst the height of the IRA activities. They bombed our market town - Guildford - but nobody ever told the community how we should spot future bombers. We all knew to report unattended baggage, cars parked illegally and to take our litter home because all town litter bins were removed, but nobody ever pin-pointed the personal characteristics of the 'beggers' who carried explosives in their bags or cars.

I've spent all my life in an area surrounded by military bases in the South of England. Aldershot, Home of The British Army is 12 miles down the road, The Guards at Pirbright, Royal Engineers at Minley, army officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, RAF Odiham where a certain young royal is learning to play nicely with helicopters, all these bases are less than 30 minutes drive away from my life-long home.

Despite it being peace-time if you grow up in this district you'll know the sound of gun fire, explosions and seeing tank convoys go through the woods. But I still couldn't tell the difference in the pub between a fit soldier off-duty and somebody with fanatical fascinations for bombs or firearms. Not without jumping to ethnically inappropriate conclusions.

I come from a family where three generations have served Queen and country in WWI, WWII and The Cold War during the Eighties and I had a handful of Naval pen-pals on ships serving out in The Falklands. Added to that a five month booking as a Personal Secretary to an Air Commodore at a military college and a brother who is an armed officer at Heathrow you'd think I should know how to spot a terrorist at the supermarket. But I don't. No more than I could spot a burglar, pervert or car thief in the street. Of course, I do have the wits to recognize crime in progress but when we are talking about terrorism I fear that it will all be rather too late.

Terrorists are specialist criminals and I believe their identification, monitoring and apprehension should be dealt with by the professionals whose wages our taxes contribute towards.

The general public barely manage to cope with reporting petty thefts, assaults, break-ins, auto-crime, reporting their neighbors for benefit fraud, child abuse, animal neglect and shop-lifting so the concept of having us all out terrorist spotting is surreal optimism. Few of us bother to 'get involved' in small-town crime in our own streets so why should we want to recognize a terrorist? The majority of us are reluctant to challenge a teenager spraying obscenities on a public bench because we fear the consequences. Can you imagine the consequences of reporting a suspect terrorist and then the police having insufficient evidence to press charges? I think there is a high risk that the irate suspect would probably ensure you became the evidence!

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