The teenager who has today pleaded guilty to murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance class was referred to the government’s anti-terror programme three times before the horrific killings.
Axel Rudakubana was just 13 when he was first sent to Prevent – with two other referrals made in 2021 – all while he was living in Banks in Lancashire, after moving with his family from Cardiff in Wales in 2013. After one of the referrals, it was recommended that he be referred to other services. It is not known if this happened.
Prevent is a government programme to identify those who may be falling for terrorist ideologies. It aims to turn them away from carrying out violence. Police say that despite extensive searches and investigation there is no evidence of a terrorist motivation for the Southport attack carried out by Rudakubana.
After the stabbings, an emergency review of how Prevent dealt with the teen killer was ordered, which found that the Prevent policies at the time, covering the criteria needed to accept someone on the scheme for de-radicalisation work, were correctly followed.
The Guardian reports that Rudakubana was first referred to Prevent over concerns he was looking at material about school massacres in the US, and a fascination with violence. He used computers at the school he attended at the time to search for material on school massacres. In 2020 it was assessed that he did not fit the criteria for the voluntary scheme but should be referred to other services.
Two years later, in 2021, he was referred again to Prevent after viewing material on Libya and past terrorist attacks, including those on London in 2017. The material is understood to have consisted of news articles, and at the time he was assessed by Prevent, officials did not have any information that he was viewing or searching for extremist material.
He was judged three times not to pose a terrorism risk, and was thus outside the scope of the scheme. Sources told the newspaper there remains a grey area in cases where it is feared that a young person may pose a risk of violence, but where there is no sign of a terrorist ideology motivating them. A source told the Guardian: “There is a gap for those who are volatile, who need management, who may be dangerous. There is nothing for them.”
On July 29 last year, just days into the school summer holidays Rudakubana rushed into the dance class and knifed young Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven to death.
Today he has pleaded guilty to their murders. He also pleaded guilty to 10 counts of attempted murder, possession of a bladed article and to production of a biological toxin, namely ricin. He also pleaded guilty to possession of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, namely a PDF file entitled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual”.
He will be sentenced on Thursday but has already been told he will be facing a life sentence.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.