Hardly Clark Kent

Soon after the events of 11 September, in many parts of the world, there was an anti-Muslim feeling. In places like Slough in Berkshire (a town which is, in most respects, a blight in an otherwise picturesque and gentile county) there were underlying tensions, anyway. In recent years, running street battles had been commonplace between various ethnic groups. Religious leaders from all groups worked with the police to bring the pressure cooker atmosphere down to something below a simmer.

This did not please David Tovey who decided to do something about it. He set about creating a widespread graffiti campaign - writing anti-white slogans everywhere he could. Racist, hate-filled, crude messages appeared in predominently white districts. The intention was, seemingly, to annoy whites so much that they attacked non-whites.

The hate campaign seems to have achieved little. But had it done so, Tovey was ready for trouble. Having tracked him down as the author of the graffiti, police searched his house. It was at that point that the extent of the danger became apparent.

Under the bed and secreted around the house, police found a supply of guns and other weapons and explosives that could have caused the death and maiming of many. Berkshire is sensitive to this risk - the UK's biggest mass murder of recent times was in Hungerford, not far away from where the cache was discovered. Heathrow airport is near Slough and the risk of arms smuggling through the airport (which is a huge cargo facility in addition to one of the world's biggest passenger airports) is a constant worry. In a country where armed police are rare, officers with body armour and close-combat small arms are the norm at Heathrow.

Tovey has now been convicted of a range of offences and awaits sentence.

But the question inevitably arises as to how he financed his purchase of the weapons. He was not a wealthy man and the purchase of weapons in the UK has, in recent years, become more difficult for those who are not already part of the criminal fraternity. How he accessed the criminal networks to obtain the arms is one question but another is why, with counter-money laundering laws, especially where any arms or connections to terrorism are concerned, did no one notice the transactions. His actions, in making a political or idealogical point using violence would have fallen within the UK's definition of terrorism. How strange that no one noticed.