There is not the faintest convergence between the Bourgass case as revealed in the Old Bailey this week and the crazed media and political coverage of it. The BBC’s 6pm news on Wednesday night was a disgrace, worse than anything during the Gilligan affair. But because it served Downing Street’s purpose it will doubtless avoid censure. Nor was the press any better. Mention the word terrorist and sanity flies the coop.

Bourgass, an illegal immigrant from Algeria, was found in possession of cherry stones, castor beans, nail-polish remover and recipes for ricin and other poisons, copied from a 1980s Palo Alto website in California. It was described by a detective as “garden-shed kitchen chemistry”. It had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and was translated into Arabic from American survival handbooks. This was demonstrated by Duncan Campbell, the espionage expert, and accepted as such by Porton Down, the MOD’s chemical research establishment. The prosecution eventually admitted that no ricin was found in Bourgass’s flat, merely ingredients and recipes. He presumably intended to try to make the stuff, but was clearly a hare-brained nut.

The Old Bailey was told that to make Bourgass’s ingredients into ricin or anything else would have taken a tremendous effort. As for claims this week that he could have “killed thousands”, this is absurd. The poison has to be ingested to cause death and the intention appears to have been to contaminate shop products and smear it on Holloway doorhandles. The judge concluded that the purpose was to cause “fear and disruption with the potential for injury and widespread panic.” As for al-Qaeda links, they were based on a claim extracted, possibly under torture, from a compatriot of Bourgass’s, Mohammed Meguerba, back in Algeria. Such “links” are the normal requirement from victims of the CIA’s outsourced torturers. To such material have British prosecutors descended.

This man was clearly dangerous. During his arrest in Manchester he grabbed a knife and stabbed a policeman to death. But the police and security services did a good job. They found their man, and would have done so without loss had normal handcuff procedure been followed, as admitted by Manchester police. The system worked without Charles Clarke’s emergency powers. A nasty character is now in prison for life.

Tony Blair claimed at the time of Bourgass’s arrest just before the Iraq war, in flagrant contempt of court, that he was intent on launching “weapons of mass destruction” with “huge potential”. This was allegedly evidence of an al-Qaeda plot, with Bourgass’s Wood Green refrigerator a “factory in London and Manchester”. Government spokesmen said material from the factory had “tested positive for ricin”. Peter Hain predicted a “ricin attack”, whatever that is, on the House of Commons. All this was garbage.

Bourgass’s hope, as both judge and jury concluded, was to use his kitchen concoction to spread panic. Here he was on firmer ground. His co-conspirators were not al-Qaeda but Mr Blair, David Blunkett, Mr Clarke, various newspaper editors and London police chiefs frantic to suggest that Britain faced a “9/11-style” chemical attack — and from an organisation linked to Saddam. Mr Clarke could still claim on Wednesday that Bourgass proves the need for ID cards, Mr Blunkett that he proves the need for more anti-terrorist laws and Michael Howard (more plausibly) that he proves the need for tougher immigration control.

This man appears to have been the miserable detritus of a North African dictatorship. He was fooled by antiterrorist hysteria into imagining that he could win fame in Islamist circles by concocting a potion. He ends by killing a brave policeman. As for his eight supposed co-conspirators, the Old Bailey revealed them as no more than a bunch of illegal immigrants and passport forgers, of whom thousands must be loose in Britain. Despite two years of trying, the Crown never established them as terrorists, let alone al-Qaeda. The trial, initiated in the run-up to the Iraq war, was heavily political.

The pursuit of domestic terrorism is a serious venture that deserves public support. I am sure there are dark forces hidden within society that would happily harm British citizens and I duly pay the police and MI5 to protect me from them. This they have done in the Bourgass case. The venture was dangerous and those involved are entitled to some benefit of the doubt in judging a threat, but not to scaremongering. In the Bourgass case they deserve thanks and congratulations.

But the Government’s continued occupation of Iraq and its manic anti-terrorist legislation have nothing to do with the case. They divert attention and resources from sensible policing, while fuelling resentment among Muslims on which terrorism feeds. If there is any message from the Bourgass case, it is that Iraq is making Britain less safe, not more. As for ID cards, what difference would they have made to this group of forgers, fugitives and kitchen poisoners?

Britain is in the grip of dumbed-down politics. This may be par for a general election, but has to be too important for that. I return yet again to Lord Hoffmann’s judgment on the Belmarsh detainees. The greatest threat to British liberty, he said, does not come from terrorism. It comes from the hysterical overreaction to it of the political community and the bad laws that follow.

simon.jenkins@thetimes.co.uk

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