In November 2005 after the 7/7 bombings Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, stated:
It is not the police and the intelligence agencies who will defeat crime and terror and anti-social behaviour; it is communities.
He also referred to the role of the public, acknowledging the information came after the 21/7 attacks:
A local authority worker identified the flat, which three men shown on the CCTV images had frequented: this was the bomb factory. However, he also mentioned that he had found dozens of empty peroxide bottles in the waste bins. Had we had one of our neighbourhood policing teams in place then he probably would have told us about what he had found. Peroxide is the basis of the bombs.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pre...dimbleby.shtml