Inquiry finds Southport attack could and should have been prevented

Warnings about a teenager who would go on to kill three young girls in Southport were plain long before the attack, and the atrocity at a children’s dance class “could and should have been prevented”, a public inquiry in the UK has concluded.

Nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, six-year-old Bebe King and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe were killed when Axel Rudakubana entered the Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop at The Hart Space in Southport carrying a knife on 29 July 2024.

Rudakubana, who was sentenced to a minimum term of 52 years, could have been stopped either if his parents had “done what they morally ought to have done” or if public bodies had put the right safeguards in place to manage the danger he posed, Southport Inquiry chairman Adrian Fulford said in his report.

Then aged 17, Rudakubana also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, along with class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

In a statement delivered at Liverpool Town Hall alongside publication of the report, Mr Fulford said: “I have no doubt that if appropriate procedures had been in place and if sensible steps had been taken by the agencies and AR’s parents, this dreadful event would not have happened.

“It could have been and it should have been prevented.”

Mr Fulford said the failure — both by institutions and by individuals — to “stand up and accept responsibility” for dealing with the risk posed by the killer was a “frankly depressing – and therefore urgent – matter requiring government attention”.

He said: “Far too often, AR’s ‘case’ was passed from one public sector agency to another in an inappropriate merry-go-round of referrals, assessments, case-closures and ‘hand-offs’.”

Axel Rudakubana received a minimum 52-year sentence for murdering the three girls

Mr Fulford said the teenager’s parents, Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire, had “created significant obstructions” to efforts by agencies to engage with him. He said they failed to challenge his conduct, impose boundaries or report what was an obvious escalation in the threat he presented.

He said: “If AR’s parents had done what they morally ought to have done, AR would not have been at liberty to conduct the attack and it would not therefore have occurred.”

At the same time, he said, it should have been “obvious” to professionals in a position to intervene that Rudakubana was not being “effectively parented”.

Both of Rudakubana’s parents, who moved to the UK from Rwanda, gave evidence to the inquiry remotely.

His mother told the hearing: “There are many things that Alphonse and I wish we had done differently, anything that might have prevented the horrific event of July 29 2024.

“(For) our failure, we are profoundly sorry.”

Adrian Fulford spoke at Liverpool Town Hall as the report was released

Mr Fulford said Rudakubana had “clearly revealed the extreme danger that he presented to others” more than four years before the Southport killings, when he returned to his former school, Range High School in Formby, armed with a kitchen knife and a hockey stick and attacked another student.

The chairman said that December 2019 incident, which resulted in a 10-month referral order, marked a “watershed event” and should have prompted agencies to treat him as posing a “high risk of harm to others”.

The inquiry heard that Rudakubana was referred to the anti-terror programme Prevent three times between 2019 and 2024, but each referral was later closed.

He went on to buy several weapons online, including three machetes, as well as ingredients later used to produce the poison ricin.

Mr Fulford said that, over time, contact between Rudakubana and public bodies became “at best, something of a token”.

He said: “They were unaware of his continuing chilling internet preoccupations and his accumulation of lethal weapons, as well as the ingredients for a lethal poison.”

The chairman recommended that the inquiry’s second phase examine whether a single agency or structure should be tasked with overseeing interventions for children who present a high risk of causing serious harm.

Mr Fulford said Rudakubana’s viewing of “degrading, violent and misogynistic material” online fuelled his “already unhealthy fascination with violence”.

After the attack, investigators found downloads on Rudakubana’s tablets including an Al-Qaeda training manual, a history of Nazi Germany and documents covering wars in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Somalia and South Sudan.

The chairman said the failure to properly examine Rudakubana’s “online life” was a “significant failure” that stopped agencies from recognising and addressing the danger.

He recommended that the second phase of the inquiry also consider powers to restrict or monitor internet access for children who pose a risk to others.

Mr Fulford further said agencies failed to understand that Rudakubana’s autism spectrum disorder diagnosis “significantly increased the risk that he posed”.

He added that there had been a “repeated tendency” to excuse his behaviour because of his autism.