Keir Starmer announces review of counter-extremism measures after Southport murders by Axel Rudakubana

Britain faces a new threat of terrorism from “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms” following the Southport murders, the Prime Minister has said

Britain faces a new threat of terrorism from “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms” following the Southport murders, the Prime Minister has said.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the failure of institutions in the case of child-killer Axel Rudakubana “frankly leaps off the page” as he announced an inquiry into how the state had failed to prevent the murders.

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The 18-year-old pleaded guilty on Monday to murdering three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside, in July last year.

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Despite contact with state agencies such as Prevent, aimed at countering terrorism, authorities failed to stop the attack, which claimed the lives of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Rudakubana was responsible for “one of the most barbaric crimes in our country’s history”, as she set out details for the public inquiry into the Southport attack.

She told MPs in the Commons on Tuesday the government would “consider the wider challenge of rising youth violence” and that requests would be made to tech companies to remove online material accessed by Rudakubana.

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Despite a previous conviction for violence, at the age of 17 he was able to order a kitchen knife from Amazon, which he used to fatally stab the girls.

Rudakubana admitted carrying a knife more than ten times, Ms Cooper said. She said the government would “bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring”.

She also said the government had ordered a “thorough review” of the killer’s referrals to the Prevent anti-terror programme “to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed”.

This comes two years after the previous government vowed to “swiftly implement” a major overhaul of Prevent recommended by Sir William Shawcross amid a litany of concerns, which had seen referrals for a string of extremists before they carried out terror attacks.

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Last year Sir William claimed the public were being put at risk because key recommendations he made in his 2023 report on Prevent had been “ignored” by ministers.

Addressing the nation from Downing Street on Tuesday, Sir Keir said failures to make changes after inquiries are the “oxygen for wider conspiracy” as he said “nothing will be off the table” in the inquiry.

He said: “As part of the inquiry launched by the Home Secretary yesterday, I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure – failure which in this case, frankly, leaps off the page.

“For example, the perpetrator was referred to the Prevent programme on three separate occasions – in 2019 once and in 2021 twice.

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“Yet, on each of these occasions, a judgment was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention – a judgment that was clearly wrong and which failed those families. And I acknowledge that here today.”

Axel Rudakubana, the 18-year-old responsible for the brutal murder of three young girls in Southport last yearAxel Rudakubana, the 18-year-old responsible for the brutal murder of three young girls in Southport last year
Axel Rudakubana, the 18-year-old responsible for the brutal murder of three young girls in Southport last year | PA/Merseyside Police

The Prime Minister said the Southport killings “must be a line in the sand for Britain”.

Sir Keir said the murders showed “terrorism has changed”, with “acts of extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms”.

The Prime Minister vowed to change the law if necessary to tackle the “new and dangerous” threat. He said: “The predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent – groups like al Qaida.

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“That threat, of course, remains, but now, alongside that, we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom accessing all manner of material online – desperate for notoriety, sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.

“If the law needs to change to recognise this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it and quickly, and we will also review our entire counter-extremist system to make sure we have what we need to defeat it.”

Ms Cooper said the country needed “independent answers” on Prevent and other agencies’ contact with the “extremely violent” Rudakubana and “how he came to be so dangerous”.

The Prime Minister also revealed he had known details of the case as they were emerging after the attack, but to have made them public would have risked a future criminal trial collapsing.

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He said: “That is the usual practice in a case such as this. But you know, and I know, that it would not have been right to disclose those details. The only losers, if the details have been disclosed, would be the victims and the families, because it ran the risk the trial would collapse. I’m never going to do that.”

Mr Justice Goose said Rudakubana, of Banks, Lancashire, would be sentenced on Thursday.

He is not expected to receive a whole life order because he was 17 at the time of the murders. The measures can normally only be imposed on criminals aged 21 or over, and are usually only considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.

Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, also admitted the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

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He further pleaded guilty to possessing a knife on the date of the attack, production of a biological toxin, ricin, on or before July 29, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

The terrorism offence relates to a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual, which he is said to have possessed between August 29, 2021 and July 30, 2024.

The ricin, a deadly poison, and the document were found during searches of the home in Old School Close, which he shared with his parents, who are originally from Rwanda.

Documents about Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs were found on Rudakubana’s devices during police searches of his home.

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