Keir Starmer has ordered a public inquiry into the failings that allowed an “extremely violent” teenager to murder three young girls in one of the worst attacks on children in recent UK history.
The announcement came after Axel Rudakubana, 18, dramatically pleaded guilty to the Southport atrocity and followed revelations in the Guardian that he had previously been referred to Prevent, the government’s anti-radicalisation scheme.
The prime minister said the country had “failed in its duty” to protect the girls from the troubled teenager, who on Monday admitted murdering Bebe King, six, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and trying to kill 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club last summer.
After the astonishing change of plea – which came on the day he was set to stand trial – it was disclosed that Rudakubana had been referred to Prevent three times, the first as long ago as 2019, and was known to authorities as a violent schoolboy with a troubling obsession with mass murder.
One of the referrals followed concerns about his potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, it is understood.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said families of the victims “need answers” about whether Rudakubana’s attack could have been stopped, as she confirmed he was in contact with a range of different agencies throughout his teenage years.
He was referred three times to the Prevent programme between December 2019 and April 2021, aged 13 and 14, she said, adding that he also had contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services.
“Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed,” she added.
The killer, who turned 18 nine days after the atrocity, will not be handed a whole-life term when he is sentenced on Thursday due to his age, raising the possibility that he will one day be released from prison.
Rudakubana’s history of violence and obsession with genocides, ranging from Nazi Germany to the ethnic killings in Rwanda, where his father is believed to have fought, can now be laid bare.
Days before the attack, Rudakubana’s father stopped him from taking a taxi to a school he was expelled from in 2019, raising fears he had been planning to attack pupils.
Neighbours said they saw Alphonse Rudakubana, 49, remonstrating with his son outside their home before the teenager eventually got out of the car.
Sources told the Guardian Rudakubana had been planning to go to Range high school in Formby, Merseyside, where he was expelled over claims he had taken a knife into the building after being bullied.
The incident took place on 22 July, the day pupils were due to leave for the summer holidays, and a week before he attacked children at the Hart Space, a community centre 5 miles from his home in the Lancashire village of Banks.
Shortly after being expelled, Rudakubana returned to the school and threatened to attack teachers and pupils with a hockey stick on which he had written their names, sources said.
One senior professional told the Guardian that social workers deemed him such a threat they insisted on police being present when they met him.
His obsession with mass killings was also known to the authorities, but it is not clear whether they were aware of his father’s link to the Rwanda genocide of 1994.
It can now be revealed that Alphonse Rudakubana, a taxi driver who arrived in the UK in 2002, is thought to have fought with the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), an armed force that battled the Hutu-dominated regime in Rwanda and eventually brought an end to the mass ethnic killings of 1994.
He is reported to have been an RPA officer, possibly relatively senior, based in neighbouring Uganda, where his family are thought to have fled well before the genocide.
Far-right protesters had gathered outside Liverpool crown court amid a heavy police presence for what was expected to be the first day of Rudakubana’s trial.
Wearing a similar Covid-style face mask to the one he wore during his attack, Rudakubana refused to stand for the judge and stayed silent when asked to confirm his name, before he had a short conversation with his barrister.
In a voice that was barely audible in the packed courtroom, the teenager stunned those present when he answered “guilty” to each of the 16 charges put to him.
As well as three counts of murder, he admitted trying to murder 10 other children and two adults, including the dance teacher Leanne Lucas, who was stabbed in the back, arms and neck while trying to protect two little girls.
He also pleaded guilty to possessing terrorist material – an academic handbook on al-Qaida – and producing the deadly toxin ricin. It was the first time in four court hearings that he had spoken.
The attack triggered the worst disorder in Britain in years, as far-right figures leapt on false claims that the suspect was an Islamist extremist who had arrived in the UK by small boat.
Police have found no evidence that the Southport attack was motivated by political, religious, racial or ideological causes, meaning it cannot be classed as an act of terrorism despite him having possession of a document proscribed under terrorism laws.
Despite combing through each of his three computer devices, officers remain unable to say why he chose to attack the sold-out holiday club for primary school children.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, accused the government of “the most astonishing cover-up” after the guilty pleas, and said he would be demanding that Cooper answer questions in the Commons.
Farage said he had been accused of “stoking and encouraging” disorder when he asked ministers to explain last summer whether the killer was known to authorities.
Senior police officers said there was next to no credible intelligence of trouble after the guilty pleas, but they are expected to closely monitor the sentencing on Thursday, when the harrowing detail of the attacks may emerge for the first time.
Announcing the public inquiry, Cooper said: “Although, in line with CPS advice to preserve the integrity of the prosecution, we were constrained in what we were able to say at the time, the Home Office commissioned an urgent prevent learning review during the summer into the three referrals that took place and why they were closed.
“We will publish further details this week, alongside new reforms to the Prevent programme.
“But we also need more independent answers on both Prevent and all the other agencies that came into contact with this extremely violent teenager as well as answers on how he came to be so dangerous, including through a public inquiry that can get to the truth about what happened and what needs to change.”
Source: theguardian.com
