The failure to disclose “basic facts” about the Southport attacker led to “dangerous fictions” that could have prejudiced his murder trial, the terror watchdog has warned. In what could be seen as an apparent dig at Sir Keir Starmer, Jonathan Hall KC slammed the authorities for refusing to reveal details about Axel Rudakubana before the trial.
Government and law enforcement officials, including the Prime Minister, said they had to keep information back to avoid prejudicing any potential trial. Mr Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said withholding information could have been “far more prejudicial” than making the facts public.
He called for an “urgent need” to understand the balance of prejudice in the digital age as contempt of court laws are being reviewed in the wake of the case.
The Law Commission, which advises ministers on new laws, has been asked by the Government to fast-track new contempt rules to prevent a repeat of the riots that followed the Southport murders.
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, walked into the Hart Space dance studio and attacked children at a Taylor Swift themed half-term event in July last year.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and six-year-old Bebe King were killed while nine other children and two adults were injured.
Mr Hall suggested the failure to “spell out basic and sober facts” led to “contagious disinformation about a murderous Muslim asylum-seeker that stoked the ensuing riots”.
Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “I would go further than that: it led to dangerous fictions that could have been far more prejudicial to the prosecution of Rudakubana than some of the true facts which were suppressed in the name of contempt of court.
“Had there been a trial, jurors could have entered court with the impression that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum-seeker and, more toxically, that the authorities were determined to hush it up.”
Police did disclose that the suspect was a 17-year-old male from Banks in Lancashire, who was born in Cardiff.
