Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said he understands why Jewish people in Greater Manchester feel frightened in the wake of the Heaton Park synagogue attack and other antisemitic atrocities around the world.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News on Monday night (August 31) ahead of a memorial at the Crumpsall synagogue, GMP's Chief Constable said he 'regrets' the fact Jewish people feel less safe.
Response to community fears
Responding to earlier remarks made by Heaton Park Rabbi Daniel Walker - who said the community feels more vulnerable now than it did at the time of the attack - Sir Stephen said: "The fact that people feel more fearful post a terrorist attack on the steps of this very synagogue just points to how serious this issue is in our country.
"And of course I regret the fact that people feel less safe, but one only has to look at the litany of terrorist atrocities, both in the UK and abroad. You've seen the fact that we are prosecuting people who have conspired with the terrorist who committed this attack and assisted that person."
"All of this adds to this community feeling very frightened and I understand that. What we have to do, of course, is to bend every sinew to reduce threat, risk and harm and that is what we are determined to do."
Memorial and security operation
Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed and three others injured as they tried to defend the synagogue from terrorist Jihad al-Shamie on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on October 2 last year.
A massive police operation was put in place for Bank Holiday Monday's service, akin to the security around a football match or major event, with dozens of police, road closures and armed officers stationed around the synagogue.
Sir Stephen said it 'pained' him to say the 'very significant measures' were necessary to keep the community safe. He added: "It is our Jewish communities who bring their children to school behind large fences with security guards. They have to put up with that which no other community in the UK has to tolerate. So they are used to it, but it's an entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs."
Funding and call for unity
Sir Stephen, who spoke at the service alongside Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Secretary of State Angela Rayner, Rabbi Walker and others, also said he welcomed last month's government announcement that GMP would be getting an extra £22m to police Jewish communities. But he also called for the 'whole country' to come together to combat antisemitism.
He said: "Higher fences, more security, more CCTV is a good thing, but it doesn't resolve the issue. Wider civic society needs to come together to ensure that more concrete change takes place in our country.
"What this money enables us to do is to starve the terrorists of the oxygen of being able to perpetrate atrocities on innocent people whilst we collectively do more to make sure that the lives of our Jewish people are unaffected."
