George Tyndale : It's not only MI5 and West Yorkshire Police who bungled the July 7 London bombing investigation

But the end of this investigation, which came with the verdicts of not guilty on Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil and Sadeer Salaam - who were accused of assisting the bombers - also tells us a great deal about the Muslim community.

The police believe that as many as 20 people were involved in the plot.

In the two bomb factories in Leeds they found 10 sets of fingerprints that have never been identified.

With this many involved it is obvious that there are witnesses who could have come forward and have not.

This total lack of co-operation underscores the series of reports and opinion polls which have over recent years demonstrated that support for and sympathy with terrorist activity is by no means confined to the "extremist minority" we hear so much about.

The security services are already tracking 2,000 individuals, and clearly are still failing to keep tabs on others.

But a report for the Association of Chief Police Officers last year found a "disturbing proportion" of young Muslims expressing support for extremist elements.

A poll by Populus suggested that 13 per cent of those between 16 and 24 "admire organisations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the west".

Government adviser, Haras Rafiq, has estimated that one in five Muslims sympathises with militants and as many as nine per cent may "actually agree with and support proactively the people who are deciding to blow themselves up".

With 1.6 million Muslims in Britain that amounts to around 150,000 people supporting terrorism.

Clearly the millions of pounds spent by the Government on "deradicalisation" has had no effect whatsoever.

And just as clearly the echoing silence like the one that followed the London bombings is becoming as threatening to this country as the explosions themselves.