CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Shawcross has now disagreed publicly. The Home Office had, he said, ‘ignored’ key recommendations to beef up Prevent’s performance and the glass remained only ‘half full.’ I have some experience of bureaucratic sleight of hand at work when it comes to reviews and recommendations. When I was tasked by the Government to look into the Prison Service’s colossal and unforgivable failures in containing Islamist extremism a few years ago, I made 69 recommendations which were mysteriously repurposed into 11 without my consent; eight were finally accepted."

"Robinson presents a problem for the prison service. “The decisions around how and where Robinson will be held are fraught with difficulty for prison bosses,” said Ian Acheson, a counter-extremism adviser and former prison governor...Acheson warned that attempts were being made to propagandise his imprisonment, and misinformation about his treatment was already spreading on social media. The Tommy Robinson propaganda machine seems unlikely to go away."

"“Love or loathe him, all can agree that Tommy Robinson faces a torrid time as he is committed to imprisonment after pleading guilty to contempt of court. At Woolwich Crown Court this week, we heard from Mr Justice Johnson that Robinson’s breaches of an injunction following a libel trial that he lost were so serious that any suggestion of a non-custodial sentence was impossible… Ian Acheson, the former head of security at HMP Wandsworth, told me the authorities will face ‘a big headache when dealing with Robinson' s custody.’ He said that on the one hand the offence for which he received a prison sentence is relatively minor and there is no record of him misbehaving in his previous sentence.”

"Robinson was also kept isolated during his last stint in prison, something which would be a "headache" for prisoner officers, according to former prison governor Ian Acheson."

"Writing in August, Ian Acheson, a former counter-terrorism official who also worked as director of community safety at the Home Office, warned that pursuing a strategy of minimal information risked creating a void that would be exploited by elements of the far-right determined to break community cohesion. Acheson called for all the facts about the background of the alleged perpetrator to be disclosed “as soon as possible,” urging the police not to engage in “further dithering”."