Southport triple killer Axel Rudakubana should have been considered a terror risk after he made threats to murder children and teachers but experts missed the warning signs, a damning review has found.
The knifeman who attacked children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class had been referred to the Government’s de-radicalisation programme Prevent three times.
But in a catalogue of blunders – including spelling his name wrong – experts failed to put the teenager on a scheme to tackle potential terrorists before he embarked on his rampage.
He then murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in Southport last July.
Instead, his referrals was closed by Prevent ‘prematurely’, without being fully investigated, as he showed no obvious ideology. But, the review found, his fascination with extreme violence should have put him under the microscope.
Security minister Dan Jarvis said ‘there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent’, adding: ‘There are serious questions about how various agencies failed to identify and collectively act on the warning signs.’
Southport MP Patrick Hurley said: ‘Some of the details in this report, in this review, beggar belief.’
Yesterday the damning insight of the case revealed how Rudakubana, now 18, had admitted carrying a knife at school more than ten times, talked about ‘getting teachers murdered’ and wanted to knife a boy he had attacked with a hockey stick to ‘finish him off’.
Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport
Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar were murdered in the atrocity
By the age of 13, he was researching school shootings, talking about ‘stabbing people’ and claiming the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack, which killed 22 men, women and children, was a ‘good thing’.
Hooked on videos of ‘people hurting themselves’, the disturbed pupil was overheard speaking to students about killing someone with a broken drill bit and asked art teachers if he could have a ‘picture of a severed head to draw’.
Yet in a rush to close his case ‘prematurely’, experts may have failed to consider all the evidence because his name was misspelt in files, the report said. Prevent also did not complete lines of inquiries and concerns that he posed a risk to staff and students were brushed off as a ‘knee-jerk reaction’.
Misguided officers placed ‘too much focus’… ‘on the absence of a distinct ideology’, and missed signs of his escalating risk, the report concluded.
Yesterday Mr Jarvis announced that Rudakubana will be considered as a ‘registered terrorist offender’ after he was jailed last month for 52 years for the murders and for producing the poison ricin using a terrorist manual.
One parent whose daughter was in Rudakubana’s year said last night: ‘Had more been done then I imagine there’d be three little girls still alive in Southport.’
Rudakubana was first referred to Prevent on December 5, 2019, after being excluded from Range High School in Merseyside for carrying a knife. He had also been caught searching for school shootings during a computer lesson on November 15, 2019. It then emerged that Rudakubana had contacted the National Crime Agency months earlier, reporting that he was bullied at school and had resorted to taking a knife into lessons ten times.
During an art lesson at his new school, Acorns School in Ormskirk, on December 3 Rudakubana questioned why he was able to draw guns but not research them on the internet, asking a teacher: ‘Can we have a picture of a severed head then?’
An emergency meeting was arranged with agencies, but police declined to attend.
Two Apollo Cerbera knives with 20cm blades, one still in its sheath, were recovered days after Rudakubana bought them on Amazon
Rudakubana’s lunchbox of Ricin which had the potential to kill as many as 12,500 people
Six days after the referral, Rudakubana was arrested on December 11 for beating a boy with a hockey stick.
He was found with a knife and told police he intended to ‘finish him off’ with the blade and was not ‘bothered by the prospects of prison’.
A family member also warned officers of his ‘hit list’ of ‘targets’.
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His case was closed on January 31, 2020, as Prevent considered there was no counterterrorism concerns, but it failed to consider his bullying ‘grievance’ as a potential ‘motivating factor’, the review found.
Yesterday the report concluded: ‘Closure at this point was premature as there was some key information not yet known regarding what was held on his devices and the internet search history.
‘There were a number of factors present to have concerns regarding Rudakubana and his potential vulnerability to being drawn into terrorism.
The researching of school shootings, talking about stabbing people, stating the terrorist attack on the MEN (Arena) was a good thing, may have shown a real interest in terrorism.
‘It is the opinion of the reviewer that there was sufficient information to refer this case to Channel [a Prevent programme].’
Security minister Dan Jarvis addressing the Commons today alongside the Home Secretary
Teachers made a second referral on February 1, 2021, after a pupil showed them social media posts that suggested Cardiff-born Rudakubana was being radicalised. But his name was misspelt on the file, which meant information may not have showed up in searches.
On February 17, the case was closed ‘quickly on minimal information’, with Prevent failing to complete potential lines of enquiry, including not speaking to the referring teacher or pupil, not considering school internet searches or consulting Rudakubana’s parents, who moved to the UK to escape the Rwandan genocide.
A third referral was made on April 26, 2021, when the 14-year-old searched for London terror attacks and showed ‘a passionate interest in Israel/Palestine conflict, MI5 and the IRA.’ His name was spelt differently again.
Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing Matt Jukes said the Prevent system was ‘not equipped’ at the time to deal with ‘emerging risks that were very different to those it had been built to address’.