22/05/2018 Political Affairs and Democracy
The victim of a terror attack in London has told a parliamentary hearing in Athens about the difficult challenges he faced in the aftermath of the attack – and how he had hoped for greater support from the authorities, including police and health workers.
Student Travis D. Frain was on a university class trip when he was badly injured by a speeding car which mounted the pavement during the terrorist attack at the Palace of Westminster in March 2017. More than 50 people were injured, and six died – including an unarmed police officer and the attacker.
“I suffered relatively serious injuries, though not life-threatening or life-changing, and had two operations, eight days in hospital, and then six months on crutches,” Mr Frain told a hearing of PACE’s Political Affairs Committee, being held as part of a report by Marietta Karamanli (France, SOC) on “protecting and supporting the victims of terrorism”.
Speaking a year to the day after a separate terror attack in Manchester, Mr Frain told the committee he was “sub-consciously prepared” for something to happen when travelling in a large city in these times. “But what I wasn’t prepared for is the way we were treated with what I can only describe as complete and utter indifference by the British Government and by some other sections of society.”
“I can wholeheartedly say that the hardest part of all was not the attack itself, or the psychological or physical injuries I received as a result, but rather the way in which we had to constantly and consistently fight to gain any real form of support,” he said.
Mr Frain described how, in the months after the attack, he and other victims faced online harassment from people claiming the attack was fake, or a “false flag”, or that they had fabricated their involvement in it – including some death threats. “We were not assigned a police liaison officer and […] we did not hear from the police regarding the incident until around five months later, nor did we have any method by which we could effectively contact them in confidence.”
Urged by friends and family to undergo psychological counselling, he and others had to spend over 10 weeks on a waiting list, before eventually being given a telephone appointment during which he was told that it was “probably time to get over it” and that he could resolve sleep issues by “drinking a warm cup of milk before bed”.
“To this day, we have yet to receive any money from any official government fund or compensation from the official criminal injuries fund,” Mr Frain pointed out. Meanwhile no elected officials of any party had met with him or his fellow victims, he added. Even memorial events – organised with the best of intentions - could deeply affect some victims, “and sometimes even re-traumatise, without the proper support mechanisms in place”.
Mr Frain said that he was grateful for some support from the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation, a charity set up in memory of two boys who lost their lives in a 1993 IRA attack, but that this group was facing huge increases in referrals, and had not had its funding confirmed this year. Meanwhile, he had helped to found the Survivors Against Terror group, a network for those who had faced such terrible experiences.
“Terror victims need more than just platitudes and sympathy,” concluded Mr Frain, citing a human rights lawyer. “They need to be given the opportunity to be of value, given welfare support, enabled to have justice, and be given the chance to find their own form of reconciliation or closure.”
Other speakers at the hearing focused on different forms of terror attack. Susanne Gentz, from the International Committee of the Red Cross, spoke about victims of terrorism in the context of armed conflict, including traumatised children. “As difficult as it is to address immediate needs of survival, helping people to get back on their feet, recreating livelihoods and ensuring the rehabilitation of basic services is often the foremost challenge” she pointed out.
Professor Mary Bossis from the University of Piraeus focused on the long-term effects of terrorist acts for the victims and their families who “live a complex vortex of emotions and unresolved issues”. She referred to the recent attacks on the Major of Thessaloniki by far-right extremists, as well as other incidents against the Greek Council of States, concluding that all political groups must unite under the same motto: “terrorism is unacceptable whatever the source and motivation”.
Ms Karamanlis is due to present her report in coming months, for debate by the Assembly, recommending further ways that governments can help to support the victims of terror.