Southport girls’ murders should have been prevented, UK inquiry says

LIVERPOOL, England, April 13 (Reuters) – The murders of three young girls nL5N3OJ0WI at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Britain in 2024 should have been prevented, but there was a “fundamental failure” by state bodies to recognise the risk the killer posed, a public inquiry concluded on Monday.

Teenager Axel Rudakubana nL5N3OJ0WI launched the frenzied knife attack at the summer vacation event in Southport, northern England, on July 29, 2024, in what Prime Minister Keir Starmer called “a devastating moment” in British history.

He was jailed for at least 52 years after he admitted the killings nL5N3OG0LB shortly before his trial last year.

Inquiry chair Adrian Fulford said there was a failure by agencies – including the police, the counter-radicalisation scheme Prevent nL8N3WO0OU and social services – to “take ownership of the risk” Rudakubana posed.

“This failure lies at the heart of why (Rudakubana) was able to mount the attack, despite so many warning signs of his capacity for fatal violence,” he added.

Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times, firstly in December 2019 after taking a knife to school and searching online for school shootings, but no further action was taken.

Rudakubana attended his previous school later in December 2019 with a hockey stick and a knife, which Fulford described as “a watershed event”.

“If appropriate arrangements and reasonable resources had been in place to address the risk that (Rudakubana) posed to others from December 2019 onwards, it is highly likely that the tragedy … would not have occurred,” Fulford said.

He also said Rudakubana’s parents “bear significant responsibility” for failing to alert the authorities to the risk their son posed.

Rudakubana, then 17, killed Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, and wounded another 10 in an attack which was followed by days of nationwide rioting nL8N3RE2SF.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden)