devastating 700-page report<\/a>, the Southport inquiry details a \u201ccatastrophic\u201d failure of the state to deal with a teenager who delved down a dark path in full view of the authorities.<\/p>\nWhat happened that summer morning in July 2024 was not \u201ca bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky\u201d, concluded the inquiry chair, Adrian Fulford. Instead, an act of grave violence had been \u201cclearly, repeatedly and unambiguously signposted over many years\u201d.<\/p>\n
The failures were so comprehensive that Fulford, a retired appeal court judge, declined to put a number on the missed opportunities to prevent the murders of Bebe King, six, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and the lasting physical and mental wounds inflicted on many others that day.<\/p>\n
The report makes clear, however, that there were dozens of warning signs going back to 2019.<\/p>\n
The notes of a rookie police officer who spent just 20 minutes with the Cardiff-born teenager in 2019, just after he turned 13, were prescient. Rudakubana showed \u201cpotential for huge escalation\u201d, wrote PC Alex McNamee after the student admitted taking a knife to school to attack a bully. He classed the risk as high.<\/p>\n
Yet by July 2024, six days before his knife rampage, Rudakubana had been discharged from mental health services with a perfunctory report that concluded: \u201cPoses risk to others \u2013 None.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over those five years, he had passed through virtually every state body, including three referrals to the counter-terror agency Prevent. The inquiry identified five main failures of those involved.<\/p>\n
1. Not one single body assumed lead responsibility<\/p>\n
Rudakubana \u201cfell through the cracks\u201d of a system where there was a \u201cwidespread but false assumption\u201d that he was someone else\u2019s problem, Fulford said. Despite the many agencies involved, no single body took a lead role which meant none carried out a comprehensive risk assessment.<\/p>\n
Lancashire constabulary took the view that Prevent was in charge, the inquiry said, while the council repeatedly stepped down his case to non-statutory help. The forensic child and adolescent mental health services closed the case in March 2020 without carrying out an assessment of the risk he posed to others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis culture has to end,\u201d the inquiry chair said, adding: \u201cAgencies must not simply pass on the risk to others or assume others have taken on responsibility\u201d.<\/p>\n
2. Lack of information sharing<\/p>\n
There was an \u201calarming\u201d failure to share information within and between the agencies, including Prevent, Lancashire constabulary, schools, councils and health services.<\/p>\n
The most striking consequence stems from an incident when Rudakubana went missing in March 2022 and was found with a knife on a bus, telling police he wanted to stab someone. He also admitted to thinking about using poison.<\/p>\n
Had the agencies involved had a \u201cremotely adequate understanding\u201d of his history, the teenager would have been arrested and his house probably searched, where officers would almost certainly have discovered his preparations to attempt to make deadly poison and the terrorist material on his computer.<\/p>\n
Instead of arresting him, Rudakubana was returned home by two rookie police officers, who advised his parents to hide their knives.<\/p>\n
3. Autism used to excuse growing threat<\/p>\n
Fulford stressed that it was wrong to make a general link between autism and an increased risk of a person becoming violent. But in Rudakubana, he said, this condition manifested in a growing threat to others. It took 77 weeks for him to be diagnosed with autism after a GP referral in August 2019.<\/p>\n
His worsening behaviour \u2013 including a fascination with extreme violence, appearing to condone terrorists and expressing murderous thoughts about fellow pupils and teachers \u2013 were too frequently \u201cexcused\u201d by professionals on the basis of his autism.<\/p>\n
Again, Fulford highlighted the \u201cinadequate\u201d response to the bus incident in 2022, which police put down to Rudakubana having a \u201cbad mh [mental health] episode\u201d.<\/p>\n
The inquiry chair said: \u201cAgencies regularly simply used autism as an explanation, or even an excuse, for his conduct including his violence. Strategies and interventions were needed in order to address the risk he posed and the causes of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut instead, as a result of a significant lack of understanding, the problem was left both unmanaged and underestimated.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Online habits overlooked<\/p>\n
By the morning of his carefully planned attack, Rudakubana had become a recluse. He had amassed a cache of weapons in view of his parents and left their house only a handful of times during the previous two years \u2013 and only then when he intended to harm school pupils.<\/p>\n
Online, he festered in dark places, researching school shootings, terror attacks and ways to attack others. Occasionally, he did this in full view of other pupils and teachers, triggering the three referrals to Prevent.<\/p>\n
Yet authorities showed only a \u201cglancing interest\u201d in his internet use, Fulford found. When limited questions were asked, the inquiry found, Rudakubana\u2019s \u201cfalse and self-serving replies were far too readily accepted\u201d.<\/p>\n
5. The role of his parents<\/p>\n
Over two days of astonishing testimony in November, Rudakubana\u2019s father, Alphonse Rudakubana, admitted knowing<\/a> that his son had amassed an arsenal of weapons \u2013 including knives, a bow and arrow and a sledgehammer, as well as a jerry can \u2013 and that he feared his son was planning to attack others.<\/p>\nHowever, he did not alert the police or any other agency because he worried his son would be taken away. Alphonse told the inquiry he was terrified, abused and repeatedly attacked by his teenage son, who had turned into \u201ca monster\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite the difficulties they faced, Fulford concluded, Rudakubana\u2019s parents \u201cbear considerable blame for what occurred\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf [his] parents had done what they morally ought to have done, [Rudakubana] would not have been at liberty to conduct the attack and it would not therefore have occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took seconds for Axel Rudakubana to carry out one of the most barbaric attacks on children in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-529145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}