BBC News Editor Susana Mendonҫa interviewing Public Services Level 3 students Anita Vikor, Jonathan Ellis-Beattie and Rezaul Karim
The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London welcomed BBC Radio London to its Tottenham Centre today to interview students on preventing extremism. In an ‘election special’ for the Vanessa Feltz show, CONEL’s students were asked to respond to the opinions London Mayoral candidates Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan who have put forward on vital aspects of their strategies to keep London safe.
The three students who took part all have career plans to work in uniformed service or the criminal justice system and met with Radio London’s news editor, Susana Mendonҫa to give their expert views based on their Public Services studies.
Rezaul Karim (20) wants to enter the Metropolitan Police Service. He was asked to comment on Zac Goldsmith’s plan to set up a force of 3000 police ‘Cyber Specials’ to tackle online grooming by extremist groups. Rezaul felt we should be directing our resources to support parents, family and community members advising them how to monitor what websites and content their children are viewing, as the nature and scale of the task is simply too great for trained volunteers.
Anita Vikor (19) who wants to work as a criminal psychologist was asked if she supported the Green campaign view that the Prevent initiative is not really working. Anita explained that in order to defeat extremism we need to set up diverse forums across all communities who are able to come together, share views and decide collectively how to deal with the extremist threat to our society.
Jonathan Ellis-Beattie (19) who wants to join the Royal Navy was asked to comment on whether or not it is right to adopt a ‘shoot to kill’ policy as endorsed by Sadiq Khan. Jonathan was firm in his view that this is absolutely the right policy to follow but it must be based on high standards of evidence and proof.
College Vice-Principal, Kurt Hintz, said: “The Radio London interview today provided a great opportunity for our Public Services students to present their views on an important topic which relates directly to what they are learning on their course and all the activity the College is emphasising on the Prevent agenda. I urge all eligible CONEL students to make their voices heard and to turn out to vote in the forthcoming Mayoral elections, as well as the EU Referendum in June.”
To listen to the Vanessa Feltz Radio Show Rezaul, Anita and Jonathan took part in, visit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03q69j0
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