Police did not think Axel Rudakubana would be radicalised, leaked report shows

Counterterrorism officers did not believe Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was “in danger of being radicalised”, leaks from a Home Office report have revealed.

The Prevent learning review will criticise counterterrorism officers for failing to properly take into account Rudakubana’s obsession with extreme violence when it is released, the Sunday Times has reported.

The 18-year-old was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years on Thursday – one of the highest minimum terms on record – for murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a dance class in Southport on July 29 last year.

He also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

Public inquiry

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has already announced that a public inquiry will be held to look at any “missed opportunities” to identify Rudakubana’s murderous intent and ordered a “thorough review” of the Prevent referrals.

Writing in the Sunday Times, she said a review of referral thresholds to Prevent was under way.

This will look in particular at individuals “obsessed with school massacres” and also “Islamist extremism”, she said.

“Where individuals are suspected to be neurodiverse, interventions should not stop because they are awaiting assessments, ignoring any risks they might pose,” she added.

Rudakubana was diagnosed by local health authorities with an autism spectrum disorder.

The Home Secretary also said there was a “serious problem” when cases did not pass the Prevent threshold but other agencies, such as social services and mental health, failed to step in.

Three separate referrals were made to the Government’s anti-terror programme, Prevent, about Rudakubana’s behaviour in the years before the attack, as well as six separate calls to police.

Rudakubana attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, used school computers to look up the London Bridge terror outrage and carried a knife on a bus and into class before he carried out the Southport murders.

Knives, archery arrows and ricin, a biological toxin 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide, were found when police raided Rudakubana’s home after the attack, with evidence suggesting the equipment needed for the substance was bought in 2022.