Like many with an interest in national security, I’ve spent this week closely following the news that there has been yet another delay to the release of the long-anticipated review into the government’s counter-extremism programme, Prevent.

But unlike many of my colleagues, these issues feel more intimate and closer to home for me, given my personal experience. In March 2017 I sustained serious injuries in the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack when an Islamist extremist targeted pedestrians, including me and my friends, with an SUV before stabbing a police officer outside Parliament.

The police reckon the car hit me at around 46 miles per hour; I was thrown over the bonnet and hit the windshield, before being thrown into the air and landing back down on the concrete. In the end I fractured my left leg in two places, suffered a shrapnel wound to my thigh, and broke four of the fingers on my left hand as well as fracturing the hand itself. 

Even so, I’ve been incredibly lucky, and I was able to make a full recovery from my injuries. But the effects of that day remain with me even now, and likely will for the rest of my life.   This is the raw and visceral reality for those of us who experience terrorism. The violent, selfish acts of a few individuals can shatter lives into a million pieces in only a few seconds, whether someone loses a loved one, or is left with physical and psychological scars.

From the Twin Towers to the streets of Kabul; from a shopping mall in Kenya to a concert in Paris, terrorism truly can affect any one of us, anywhere, at any time.    But these threats do not develop in a vacuum. And often many of those who support Islamist extremism take advantage of the values which we cherish most in a liberal society.