The assailant in the Southport massacre has pleaded guilty to the murders of three children in the town last year. Keir Starmer has leapt with unusual speed to authorise a public inquiry into what drove Axel Rudakubana into his frenzy of killing and if it could have been prevented. We now know that the state’s protective agencies crossed Rudakubana multiple times; he was referred three times to the government’s Prevent strategy, which is supposed to spot and stop tomorrow’s terrorists before hateful thought turns into lethal action.
Prevent officials can’t be the only agency under scrutiny for their handling of this case
The Prevent strategy has been under huge scrutiny recently following the publication of a review of its effectiveness by the writer Sir William Shawcross. My organisation, the Counter Extremism Project, agreed with the key findings of his 2023 report. In essence, Prevent had become a safeguarding crèche for unhappy teenagers who were unlikely ever to take up arms. This distraction and mission creep – fuelled by an unjustifiable focus on far-right extremism – made it more likely highly dangerous people would fall through the cracks. Any public inquiry must pay forensic attention to Rudakubana’s three assessments by professionals into his behaviour; unfortunately we have now seen too many examples of when Prevent practitioners have been involved with people who effectively pulled the wool over their eyes. Terrorist Usman Khan deceived naive Prevent police officers and went on to murder two students near London Bridge. Sir David Amess’s Islamist murderer explained in court that his involvement with Prevent consisted of him telling officials what he thought they wanted him to hear to make them go away. Khairi Saadallah, who murdered three men in a Reading park on a terrorist rampage did so after a charity warned Prevent officials he wanted top go on a ‘London Bridge’ style rampage. This is not a strategy in rude health.
Nobody can say that this work is easy. In particular, the motivations and dangerousness of those who hold mixed, unstable or unclear ideologies are hard to discern. What we know about Rudakubana’s background suggests he might fit into this box. But what we also know of his interactions does suggest people were asleep at the wheel.
Prevent officials can’t be the only agency under scrutiny for their handling of this case. It seems likely that failures by multiple services – youth justice, schools, mental health services and the police contributed. Merseyside Police released a statement which effectively passed the responsibility for the communications strategy in the aftermath of the Southport killings to the CPS. This is significant. The riots of last summer which traumatised the country in the wake of the Southport massacre were fuelled in part by obfuscation over Rudakubana’s identity. While nothing can excuse the violence against police and property that ensued, the handling of information in the aftermath of this atrocity can explain some of the rage that animated disorder. It may be the grimmest of ironies that police decisions on releasing details made to protect community cohesion had precisely the opposite effect. We also need to know if and how the Home Office or ministers were involved in the decision-making and learn from those lessons. Starmer’s affinity for the Crown Prosecution Service must not prevent their decisions and advice coming under the spotlight. Did the country burn as a result?
Rudakubana changed his plea to guilty on all charges on the eve of his trial yesterday as world events shoved this dramatic turn off the front pages. These charges include two terrorist offences – the manufacture of a biological weapon and the possession of an Al-Qaeda terror manual. It is likely that for decades to come he will present an extreme risk in prison both in terms of his reputation and capacity and also his vulnerability to reprisal attacks. Our high security prison estate where he will end up is already awash with scandal, with drones delivering contraband on demand to cell windows. How this risk can be safely managed will be a big headache for prison bosses.
The contrast between the Government’s dither and mental gymnastics over not having a national inquiry into child rape gangs and this incident is, to put it mildly, interesting. Perhaps Starmer is learning the hard way that political sophistry and electoral calculation which might play well in the zone one bubble won’t wash with communities brutalised by violence against children. No stone can be left unturned.
