The Prevent counter-terrorism scheme “prematurely” closed its case on Axel Rudakubana three years before he went on to murder three children in Southport, a government review has found.
Security minister Dan Jarvis MP told the House of Commons Rudakubana had already discussed the Manchester Arena bombing and stabbing people when Prevent decided to end its involvement with him.
The now convicted triple-killer was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 and April 2021 due to his interest in terrorist attacks and school shootings.
Rudakubana was 17 when he walked into a summer holiday dance workshop on 29 July last year, stabbing 11 children and two adults and killing nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and six-year-old Bebe King.
Mr Jarvis said the “importance of the families needing answers” meant that the Home Office was taking the “unusual step” of publishing the review, which he said are normally technical documents circulated internally.
Southport MP Patrick Hurley told the chamber “it beggared belief” that the report noted Rudakubana’s name was spelled incorrectly on the Prevent database, which it said had the potential to mean previous referrals would not show up in searches.
The review said while officers at Prevent had shown a “high level of compliance” with policies in place at the time, it criticised the decision not to escalate Rudakubana’s case to the next level in the process, known as Channel.
While there was no evidence of a fixed ideology or motivation, Rudakubana was obsessed with violence and his case should have been escalated as an example of what was then referred to as “mixed unclear and unstable ideology”.
