COLLEGES, universities and community centres have been visited by police officers as part of National Counter Terrorism Awareness Week.

Preventing people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism forms made up activities across West Yorkshire yesterday on day three of the awareness week.

Several events were held in Bradford centres as part of the event, including in centres with a large number of people susceptible to radicalisation.

In addition to ongoing “Prevent” work in the region, Officers and Neighbourhood Policing Teams took part in a range of activities in support of the national awareness campaign. They included engagement events and workshops at colleges, universities, community centres and city centre sites. Briefings about Prevent and the Channel Project are also being delivered to youth groups, police officers, secondary school teachers, leaders of local religious groups and public sector organisations.

Detective Superintendent Mick Hunter is the Police Regional Prevent co-ordinator. He said: “On a daily basis, Prevent officers work very hard with all sections of the community to strengthen their resilience to negative influences. This week we are stepping up our engagement activity further, to try and increase public awareness about the risks of radicalisation and what we can do to help.

“We are not looking to criminalise people, but to prevent unnecessary tragedies.”