Delivering his opening statement, Mr Moss said the “red tape” email was sent by Cheryl Smith, a safeguarding lead at Presfield High School in Southport, who had been trying to get the teenager to attend school for around a year.
Mr Moss said the school’s efforts “came to a head” on 21 March 2023 when Ms Smith wrote to a colleague describing how she had contacted social services, child mental health teams and the police to try and get them to intervene – all in vain.
She added: “Short of breaking in I don’t know how to see this kid.”
Mr Moss said the first phase of the inquiry would focus on three “central themes” – whether agencies “took responsibility or ownership” for his case, whether anyone was looking at the “overall picture” of his risk, and what “fundamental change” may be necessary to make the system work.
Mr Moss said the killer’s internet use and purchase of weapons – including machetes and archery equipment – would also be significant.
The inquiry has heard on the morning of the attack the teenager searched the social media platform X for “Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing”- which brought up a graphic video showing Bishop Emmanuel being attacked in a church in Sydney, Australia.
Mr Moss said although most of his search history had been deleted, detectives found he had very recently viewed a PDF file called “excerpt from Kamikaze death poetry”.
One tablet recovered from his house included downloads of material including documents about genocide, torture and weapons, an image of Hitler and a picture of a wolf in a suit with the caption: “Just be a lone wolf bro”.
One document, which formed part of a terrorism charge Rudakubana admitted, was a study of an Al-Qaeda Training Manual – although police also found “anti-Islamic” material.
On another device police found screenshots of “very disturbing” images including graphic injuries, slavery, mistreatment of women and Nazi Germany.