Restaurants should be included in scope of Martyn's Law, MPs told

A requirement for businesses such as restaurants to have plans in place to respond to a terrorist incident should be included within the scope of Martyn’s Law, threat, risk and security strategist Nick Aldworth has told MPs.

Aldworth has been working with Figen Murray, campaigner and mother of Martyn Hett who died in the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017, to see the introduction of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, which is currently being scrutinised by government.

If passed the bill, known as Martyn’s Law, will require venues to take steps to improve public safety and offer protection from terrorist attacks.

Speaking at the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday 6 June, Aldworth said the scope of the bill should be broad enough to include restaurants and retail outlets, citing the experiences of victims caught up in the terrorist attack in Borough Market, London, in June 2017.

He said: “Most of these attacks are not taking place in big venues. The victims of terrorism that I’ve met, they were caught up in little shops and little restaurants in places like Borough Market. I remember the first victim of terrorism I met had been dining in Borough Market on 3 June 2017 and she came to me and said ‘my experience would have been so much better if that restaurant had a plan’. As it was she was trapped in that restaurant panicked, glass windows could see people outside being stabbed to death and had no idea if that person was going to come through the door. So if we don’t get this capacity right and we exclude too many places where these attacks do take place, we will have failed to get the message across.”

He continued: “Government advice to individuals is to ‘run, hide, tell’; the plan [under Martyn’s Law] is as simple as ‘guide, shelter, communicate’. If you’ve got 100 people in your restaurant, each trying to run, hide, tell, having seen that happen for real, the consequences will be worse than someone saying ‘stop, that’s the way out, go that way’ or someone saying ‘I’m locking the doors, get down behind the counter’, or someone saying ‘don’t worry I’m on the phone to the police now’, that’s the simplicity of a plan but my experience and the experiences of victims that I’ve spoken to is that that doesn’t happen.”

Also giving evidence to the committee was Martyn Hett’s mother, who said: “When you lose somebody in such a violent way it completely destroys families. I’m a broken person, I’m not completely not functioning but I’m different, and every single family who has been impacted by terrorism in that way is a changed family. The purpose of me doing this is literally to try not to get another mother, father, sibling, another relative to suffer in the way we have.”

When asked about the scope of the proposed law she said: “Martyn’s Law is not meant to be punitive or make people bankrupt. It’s about common sense measures. Do the free of charge training. If something does happen do staff know where to evacuate or invacuate? Do you know how to keep yourselves and your customers safe? Those are minimum things to do.”

Murray also proposed that mandatory life-saving first aid training be given to security teams, to allow them to act as first responders in the event of an attack.

Martyn’s Law will go forward to be debated in parliament before it is passed.

*Image: Shutterstock *