The father of a man killed in the London Bridge terror attack accused Boris Johnson of trying to make ‘political capital’ out of his son’s death.
David Merritt branded the Tory leader a “fraud” for using the attack as justification for tougher criminal policies.
Mr Merritt’s son Jack, 25, and with fellow Cambridge University graduate Saskia Jones, 23, were attacked by Usman Khan during a prisoner rehabilitation event at Fishmongers' Hall last Friday.
Posting on Twitter , David Merritt tore into Mr Johnson, accusing him of lying and taking voters for a ride.
He wrote: “If prisoners have engaged with rehabilitation & turned their lives around, why should they be punished for what Khan did?'
“Corbyn spoke the truth last night. Johnson lied & used our son’s death to make political capital.
“Wake up Britain: this man is a fraud. He’s the worst of us, & he’s taking you for a ride. You may think the options open to you in this election are not entirely to your liking. Me neither, but I’ll be voting least worst option: anti-Tory.”
He made the comments following last night’s TV leaders debate, the last before Thursday’s General Election .
During the debate, Jeremy Corbyn said: ”What happened on the streets of London was utterly appalling and I very moved by what Jack Merritt's father said about what his son was trying to do.”
Mr Johnson had threatened to lock up terrorists and throw away the key - even though victim Jack Merritt’s dad had pleaded for him not to politicise the atrocity.
Mr Corbyn slammed the Tory leader: “Yes of course you must imprison them. Yes of course you must try and rehabilitate them if you can.
“But there has to be a monitoring process to achieve that. We need security on our streets. Security doesn’t come on the cheap.
“And if you cut the number of police officers, cut the number of PCSOs, privatise the probation service, underfund all the other aspects of the criminal justice system, then we all pay a price with our own security.”
Mr Johnson claimed he was putting a huge amount of money into the criminal justice system - even though the Tories have cut expenditure on justice by 40%, and have announced no plans to increase expenditure except on prisons.
