Axel Rudakubana appears in court via videolink in October

JULIA QUENZLER/REUTERS

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died. Eight other children and two adults — the dance class leader Leanne Lucas and businessman Jonathan Hayes — were seriously injured.

The Prevent learning review, which may also include details of other cases where people who engaged with the government scheme have gone on to carry out attacks, will criticise counterterrorism officers for failing to properly take into account his obsession with extreme violence.

Writing for The Sunday Times, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said a review of the referral thresholds to Prevent was under way. This will look in particular at individuals “obsessed with school massacres” and also “Islamist extremism”, she said. Last year 162 people were referred to Prevent for concerns about their interest in school massacres, according to the Home Office.

Cooper said that interventions should not stop in cases where people are suspected to be neurodiverse. Rudakubana was diagnosed by local health authorities with an autism spectrum disorder.

Rudakubana’s mugshot after he was arrested

MERSEYSIDE POLICE/PA

“Where individuals are suspected to be neurodiverse, interventions should not stop because they are awaiting assessments, ignoring any risks they might pose,” she said. “An end-to-end review is looking now at how Prevent deals effectively with neurodiversity.”

She also said there was a “serious problem” when cases did not pass the Prevent threshold but other agencies, such as social services and mental health, failed to step in. She announced a pilot scheme, to be launched next month, on new arrangements for such cases.

Rudakubana was referred to the programme three times. Counterterrorism officers received information about his interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the Middle East. However, they repeatedly concluded that he simply had an unusual interest in the news and world affairs for a child aged 13 and then 14, between 2019 and 2021.

“He was constantly trying to speak to his teachers about world events,” a source with knowledge of the Prevent review, said. “He was looking at news articles about mass shootings during IT class and trying to speak to his teacher about it. It was odd behaviour for a child so young. The counterterrorism officers decided he had an interest in news and current affairs, but was not in danger of being radicalised.”

Their decision-making, after Rudakubana’s history of carrying a knife into school, attacking a pupil with a hockey stick, and interest in previous terror attacks, will come under further scrutiny this week, as Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for Prevent and Pursue, admits to The Sunday Times.

Evans admitted: “We need to consider whether the counterterrorism system needs to change.” She added that MI5 had not been involved in Rudakubana’s case at any stage.

It can be revealed that Rudakubana’s parents gave counterterrorism officers permission to engage their son in the voluntary Prevent scheme in 2019. The national scheme aims to stop people being drawn into terrorism, but is run at a local level by police and local authorities and tailored to local needs.

In the northwest of England, Prevent is run by counterterrorism officers from the headquarters of Greater Manchester police just outside the city centre.

About 20 police officers of the rank of constable and sergeant, known as CTCOs, or counterterrorism case officers, make up the “frontline” of the region’s service. “They tend to be of quite junior rank,” the Prevent source, said. “They will go out and carry out the research and assessments which are required for each referral. Then the decision-making is made by counterterrorism officers of a higher rank within that unit.”

In October 2019, Rudakubana had called Childline to report being bullied at school and said he had taken in a knife from his kitchen “on several occasions”. He also said he was having thoughts of killing somebody. Lancashire police officers spoke to him at his home in the village of Banks and he was referred to a multi-agency safeguarding hub (Mash). These agencies are supposed to bring together police, social workers and mental health workers to build a support network for a vulnerable person.

Their support appears to have failed. Later that month he was expelled for bringing a knife into The Range High School in Formby. He was then enrolled into Acorns, a special needs school in Ormskirk. However, his behaviour after leaving mainstream education started to worsen and he became increasingly anxious, isolated and paranoid.

Weapons found at Rudakubana’s home

MERSEYSIDE POLICE

Then on December 5, 2019, the Prevent team received information from a teacher at Acorns, who had filled out a referral form, available online.

The Home Office review states: “Concerns over subject’s behaviour in school on multiple occasions. On that occasion he was looking at a news article about school shootings in the US in an IT lesson and trying to engage a teacher in conversation about that.”

Only six days after his first Prevent referral from teachers at his new school, Rudakubana returned to The Range and attacked another pupil with a hockey stick, breaking the boy’s wrist. Police were called and found a knife in his backpack. He was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possession of an offensive weapon and possession of a bladed article.

The Prevent source said counterterrorism officers would have had access to police records and information on the police national computer. “They are able to consider police records as part of Prevent decision-making,” the source said.

The Sunday Times does not have a copy of the report but has been made aware of some of its findings. It details the decision-making of the Prevent officers, after they interviewed Rudakubana, his father, Alphonse, and teachers at his school. “Case closed. Concerns related to Prevent were explored. Did not appear to be linked to an ideology or vulnerability to radicalisation. Vulnerability and needs were identified but these were being met by other safeguarding and other agencies. Case closed to Prevent but triaged to other services.”

Those services would include children’s social care, education services, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The officers deemed that while Rudakubana was vulnerable, CAMHS was better suited to deal with him, despite him attacking another child, carrying a knife and having a growing interest in extreme violence.

Officers could have referred him to the next stage of Prevent, known as Channel, which would mean grouping together experts in the field of extremism, who could have intervened in Rudakubana’s life, pairing him with a mentor designed to gain his trust and respect. “Islamic extremists might be paired with an imam, for example, who can challenge their thinking; or with the far right, there are several reformed former far-right activists we use to help divert away from extremism,” the source said.

This never happened.

The next Prevent referral was on February 1, 2021. Former pupils at The Range had spotted Rudakubana posting images of Colonel Gaddafi on Instagram. They alerted a teacher and the school made a Prevent referral.

One pupil who went to school with Rudakubana, said: “He didn’t have any friends or talk to anybody in the year. Nobody would play with him at break time because he didn’t really fit in. He couldn’t keep up with the banter. He never spoke to women or girls. When my mates saw the attack they guessed it was because he was a misogynist, like an incel.”

Police say there is no evidence Rudakubana was an incel — an involuntary celibate man or boy who blames women for his situation — however, he deleted his internet browsing history from his laptop shortly before the attack.

Merseyside detectives are trying to obtain the deleted data via authorities in the United States, where it is held by Google. “We’re being told it could take years to get that data, if ever,” Detective Chief Inspector Jason Pye, of Merseyside police, said. Had Southport been declared a terrorist attack, the force could have secured help from the FBI immediately.

A CCTV image of Rudakubana on his way to commit murder and, below, entering the building where the attack took place

After the second referral, Prevent officers did not interview Rudakubana. The Home Office review states the outcome. “Case closed. No radicalisation concerns identified.” The threshold for a Prevent referral in a school setting is low, according to officials. For example, after the Israel-Gaza conflict broke out in October 2023, there was an increase in referrals because of children making comments about Jewish people in an educational setting.

The third referral was on April 26, 2021. Like the first, it was from teachers at Acorns. Two internet tabs were found on his computer containing news articles about the London Bridge terrorist attack and the London bombings in 2005.

Again, Prevent officers did not interview Rudakubana. Again, the referral was also closed. He was eventually forced to leave Acorns after being charged over the school attack, and sporadically attended a third specialist school.

The learning review has found the referrals should not have been closed, and that given his age and complex needs, he should have been referred to Channel.

It finds that too much weight was placed on the “absence of ideology” without taking account of him being “obsessed with massacre or extreme violence”. Also the “cumulative” significance of those referrals was not considered.

Home office sources claimed last week that there was evidence that Rudakubana, who went to drama classes as a young boy and once starred in a TV advert, was “obsessed with notoriety”. It is understood that he wrote to the National Crime Agency (NCA) when he was 16 asking them to investigate people who were bullying him, then on another occasion wrote to the NCA to ask whether “he was known to them”.

Prevent lost a grip on Rudakubana and his family began to struggle with his anxiety.

He was being given an autism spectrum disorder assessment which led to him receiving an education and health care plan. But in November 2021, he became distressed after a stranger knocked on the door and his parents called the police, although he calmed down and officers decided not to attend. That same month Rudakubana kicked his father, Alphonse, and caused damage to his car.

Police were called, but Alphonse, a black belt in karate and former soldier in Rwanda, decided not to make a formal complaint. “The officers supported the decision,” Assistant Chief Constable Mark Winstanley, of Lancashire police, said.

In March 17, 2022, Rudakubana’s mother reported him missing from the house. “He was found on a bus by officers when the driver called the police when he refused to pay the fare,” Winstanley said. “When officers arrived he got off the bus and disclosed to officers that he had a knife which was then found after he was searched. He was taken home in the care of his parents. Officers then provided advice about securing knives in the home.” No charges were brought.

After the Southport attacks, police searched Rudakubana’s home, where they found knives and other weapons

Later that year, his father called the police after Rudakubana was denied access to a computer in the home. “Officers attended and his parents asked for assistance to help cope with him,” Winstanley said.

At each instance police referred the case to the Mash, meaning social workers, police and health professionals all had involvement in his life — but not the professionals meant to deal with extremists through the Prevent programme.

Meanwhile, Rudakubana was accessing material online relating to Nazi Germany, genocides in Rwanda, war crimes in Eastern Europe, al-Qaeda material, and extreme cartoons depicting insulting images relating to Islam, which was part of the reason why detectives decided it unlikely he was an Islamic extremist.

This is the fourth time an individual known to Prevent has gone on to commit atrocities, following the 2020 Reading stabbing spree, the Parsons Green bombing and the murder of the MP Sir David Amess.

Ali Harbi Ali murdered the Tory MP during a constituency meeting in 2021. He was put through to the Channel phase of the process. Home Office officials are deliberating on whether to publish details of Ali’s Prevent review along with Rudakubana’s.

Those close to Prevent insist the scheme has changed since 2019-21. More young people are being categorised as “mixed unclear unstable” as an ideology. “This is a result of young people coming across extreme material on the internet,” the source said. Prevent figures showed an increase of 10 per cent in referrals in the year to March 2020 from 5,737 to 6,287. Much of the increase was in the mixed or unclear category, which represented 51 per cent of total referrals.

There has been new training for frontline workers on radicalisation and a stronger policy on repeat referrals, according to Prevent.

However, Evans recognises the counterterrorism system needs to change. “At the time, the Prevent partnership response to the increasing fixation with extreme violence was evolving, but was less developed than it is today,” she said. “We have spoken about the growing number of young people with complex fixations with violence and gore in our casework. But with no clear ideology other than that fascination. Although improvements to help tackle this challenge have been made, it is right that questions are asked about what more needs to be done across the whole Prevent system and beyond.”

Ken McCallum, director-general of MI5, said the security services were “seeing far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”. Despite three Prevent referrals, some relating to mass terror attacks, MI5 had no involvement in Rudakubana’s case.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Prevent remains a vital tool to stopping people from becoming terrorists. However, in this case opportunities were missed to intervene.”

It said a review was being conducted and a public inquiry to “get to the root causes of what went wrong and ensure that this never happens again”.