Southport killer should have been seen as terror threat, Home Office admits
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana should have been treated as a terror threat after showing an interest in the Manchester Arena attack, a Home Office review has found.
Announcing the findings of the review in the Commons, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said it had found there was “sufficient risk” for Rudakubana to have been managed through the Government’s counter-terror Prevent programme.
He told MPs that counter-terrorism officers were wrong to close his case “prematurely” when there was “sufficient concern” to keep the case open because of his interest in multiple terror attacks including the Manchester Arena massacre and his declared intent to stab people.
The review blamed officers for placing “too much focus” on the absence of a terrorist ideology, a failure to explore the reasons for Rudakubana’s repeated referrals to Prevent and an incomplete pursuit of lines of inquiry.
Rudakubana murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in his attack on a dance class in Southport in July last year, which he carried out with a kitchen knife bought on Amazon. He was sentenced to 52 years in prison last month.
Bebe King, left, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar, right, were killed in the Southport attack – Merseyside Police
The review confirmed that Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times by his schools between December 2019, when he was 13, and April 2021, when he was 14.
Yet his case was closed despite him showing an interest in the Manchester Arena attack in which suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 children, men and women at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 as well as the London bombings and attacks by the IRA. He had also talked about “stabbing people”.
Mr Jarvis told MPs that his case should instead have been escalated to the Channel “multi-agency” process where he would have undergone intense support and treatment to steer him away from any terror attack.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, had said terrorism may need to be redefined in the wake of the Southport attack to take account of a new threat from attackers radicalised by extreme violence but without any fixed ideology.
Rudakubana admitted a terrorism offence for downloading an al-Qaeda training manual analysed in an academic study. But his knife attack has not been treated as terrorism by police or prosecutors.
His trial judge said that he “must accept” that there was no evidence of terrorist cause, but he added that Rudakubana’s culpability is “equivalent to terrorist matters, whatever its purpose”.
‘Families need answers’
Mr Jarvis said the Government had taken the “unusual” decision to publish the findings of the review because of the “importance of the families needing answers”.
He said: “The first Prevent referral reported concerns about him carrying a knife and searching for school shootings on the internet. The second referral was focused on his online activity relating to Libya and Gaddafi. His third referral was for searching for London bombings, the IRA, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“On each of these occasions, the decision at the time was that the perpetrator should not progress to the Channel multi-agency process. But the Prevent Learning Review found that there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent.
“It found that the referral was closed prematurely and there was sufficient concern to keep the case active while further information was collected.
“The review is clear on the concerning behaviours that the perpetrator demonstrated. It highlights his interest in the Manchester arena attack, that he talked about stabbing people, and it flagged that some of the grievances that could have been a motivation, were not fully considered.”
Axel Rudakubana had ‘talked about stabbing people’, the review found – Elizabeth Cook/PA
‘Too much focus on lack of ideology’
Mr Jarvis said that the review concluded: “Too much focus was placed on the absence of a distinct ideology, to the detriment of considering the perpetrator’s susceptibility, grievances, and complex needs.
“There was an under-exploration of the significance of his repeat referrals and the cumulative risk, including his history of violence.”
He added that the Government was accepting the review’s 14 recommendations for improvements. He said Lord David Anderson, the new independent Prevent Commissioner, would conduct an end-to-end review of the programme to ensure it was “always held to the highest standards”.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has also announced a public inquiry into how the victims and their families were failed by multiple authorities and “wider challenges around rising youth violence”.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow
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