Yvette Cooper has launched a two-phase statutory public inquiry into the Southport murders. Ms Cooper said the first phase would “thoroughly investigate” the circumstances around Axel Rudakubana’s attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in which he killed Elsie Stancombe, seven, six-year-old Bebe King and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar in July 2024.
The first phase will have particular focus on issues around policing, the criminal justice system and the multiple agencies involved with Rudakubana, following the revelation he had been referred to the Government’s Prevent scheme on three occasions but the cases were closed.
The second phase will examine the wider issue of young people being drawn into extreme violence.
Ms Cooper confirmed the teenager was referred to the Government’s counterterrorism scheme – Prevent – three times.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The brutal murder of three young girls: Bebe, Elsie and Alice in Southport was an unimaginable tragedy – we owe it to their families, and all those affected on that terrible day to quickly understand what went wrong, answer difficult questions and do everything in our power to prevent something like this from happening again.
“The Southport Inquiry will provide insights into any failings that allowed a young man with a previous history of violence, to commit this horrendous attack.
“Sir Adrian Fulford will bring a wealth of legal and criminal justice expertise to this role, and I am pleased he has agreed to chair the Inquiry.”
Rudakubana looked up information on the London bombings, the IRA, MI5, the war in Gaza, school massacres, the Libya conflict and dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a review into the Government’s counter-terrorism Prevent programme found.
But the review confirmed officers did not believe he was a terrorist threat.
Officers were wrong not to escalate his case as a potential terror threat, as there was “sufficient concern” about his extreme views and obsession with violence, the scathing report said.
A shocking section of the review found: “AMR [Axel Rudakubana] has been researching school shootings, has been talking about stabbing people and that the terrorist attack on the MEN was a good thing. At this stage it is not clear if he has an ideology.”
The probe found enough evidence for Prevent officers to refer Rudakubana to the next stage of the scheme, Channel, which aims to divert individuals from radicalisation.
