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Under-18 terror detainments triple

New figures obtained by a BBC freedom of information (FoI) request submitted by the BBC has identified that the number of under-18s detained under the Terrorism Act when entering or leaving the UK has tripled over two years. Data showed that 46 were detained in 2015, compared to 13 in 2013. The police’s ability to detain a person suspected of being involved with terrorism related to schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which grants police special powers to question and detain for up to six hours any individual passing through a UK port, airport, international rail terminal or border area. The rise in partly due to an overall push to prevent young people travelling to Syria. Furthermore, 190 under-18s were examined, but not detained, by police between July 2015 and March 2016. David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said schedule 7 was ‘an essential power in the fight against terrorism’, through which important intelligence could be gathered.

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