Terror arrest numbers halved

The number of suspected terrorists arrested by police almost halved last year, figures showed.

A total of 125 terrorism arrests were made in 2010, down from 209 the previous year, the Home Office figures showed.

One in three of last year's terror arrests resulted in a charge, with one in two of those charges being terror-related.

In all, 1,945 terrorism arrests have been made since the September 11 attacks in 2001 and 123 prisoners were serving sentences for terror offences at the end of last year, of which 22 were domestic extremists.

The figures showed 21 people were charged with terrorism-related offences last year, two of whom have since been convicted.

A total of 16 are still awaiting prosecution.

Of the 28 terror-related trials last year, 18 were convicted and all but one were handed jail terms, including four life sentences. The remaining defendant was given a community sentence.