AUTHORITIES have been accused of failing to take the far-right threat seriously enough after police took two days to treat Sunday’s firebomb attack in Dover as a terror act.

The attacker, named as 66-year-old Andrew Leak, from High Wycombe, was “driven by hate,” according to counterterrorism police who took over the investigation on Tuesday. 

He travelled 160 miles alone to Dover, where he threw three petrol bombs at the Western Jet Foil reception centre, causing minor injuries to two members of staff. 

Mr Leak, who was found dead nearby after the attack, frequently shared posts on his social media by far-right groups, including English Defence League founder “Tommy Robinson,” and vented hatred against migrants, Muslims and Ukrainian refugees. 

In a post in July, Mr Leak claimed: “All Muslims are guilty of grooming … they only rape non-Muslims.”

Kent Police initially said the force was not treating the attack as a terror incident, but on Tuesday, counterterrorism officers were brought in to take over the investigation. 

Counterterrorism Policing South East head Detective Chief Superintendent Olly Wright said: “What appears clear is that this despicable offence was targeted and likely to be driven by some form of hate-filled grievance, though this may not necessarily meet the threshold of terrorism.”

But campaigners have questioned why it took two days for counterterrorism police to join the investigation. 

Stand up to Racism co-convener Weyman Bennett told the Star: “It’s a disgrace that it wasn’t treated as a terrorist attack. Terrorism from the far right is not taken seriously, even after the murder of Jo Cox. It’s time for us to oppose the far right wherever they are.”

Others have highlighted the difference in the coverage of Sunday’s attack compared with those carried out by Muslim suspects. 

Anas Mustapha from advocacy group Cage, which campaigns for victims of the war on terror, said it was telling that the Dover attack has been put forward as an exception, while violence from suspects who are Muslim are “viewed as symptomatic of a wider culture or permissiveness of extreme views in Muslim communities.” 

Anti-fascist charity Hope Not Hate’s director of research Joe Mulhall said in comments to the Guardian: “It is clear to us that this guy was a far-right extremist with quite a long history of sharing content from far-right, extremist groups within the UK and abroad, including ‘Tommy Robinson.’

“It prompts the question why it’s taken two days before the investigation was handled to counterterror police. This sort of content was all over his social media.”