Inquiry finds there were “a number of opportunities” to stop killer Axel Rudakubana.
Axel Rudakubana (Image: PA)
The people that failed to stop Southport killer Axel Rudakubana murdering three girls must face disciplinary action – or they will be publicly named and shamed, the lawyer representing bereaved parents has warned. An inquiry has found that police and other agencies that were supposed to protect the public missed “a number of opportunities” to stop killer Axel Rudakubana before the killing of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
Lawyer Chris Walker representing the bereaved parents told Radio 4: “I wrote several months ago to those agencies I mentioned requesting disciplinary proceedings. That includes the senior managers and also the people at the coal-face.
“The predominant replies were that we need to wait until the inquiry report is out. It is now out.
“I will be revisiting that with them all individually, and consequently if those disciplinary proceedings have not concluded to our satisfaction then I know the names of those people. I know the names of the people who failed and I will state them publicly if need be, an I will also re-hash the failures and go through them all in a public environment so the world will know.”
A damning report found Rudakubana “clearly revealed the extreme danger that he presented to others” as early as December 2019, but there was “a fundamental failure” to take responsibility for him.
Inquiry chair Sir Adrian Fulford, who referred to Rudakubana by his initials, said: “This failure lies at the heart of why AR was able to mount the attack, despite so many warning signs of his capacity for fatal violence.”
Publishing his 260-page report at Liverpool town hall, he warned: “If appropriate arrangements and reasonable resources had been in place to address the risk that AR posed to others from December 2019 onwards, it is highly likely that the tragedy of 29 July 2024 would not have occurred.”
Rudakubana had been in contact with organisations including Lancashire Police, social services and the Prevent anti-terror programme. But agencies refused to “take ownership” of the case, and it was passed from one to another “in an inappropriate merry-go-round.”
As a result, he was allowed to build up an arsenal of weapons, including the ingredients to create chemical weapon ricin, while viewing “vile and disturbing imagery” online which encouraged violence.
The killer, then aged 17, went on to carry out his knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in 2024, where he also attempted to murder eight other children as well as class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
Some agencies saw it as their role to protect Rudakubana rather than the public, and there was “a repeated tendency on the part of multiple agencies to excuse AR’s behaviour” because he was autistic.
The danger posed by Rudakubana was clear as early as 2019, when he contacted Childline saying he wanted to kill a fellow pupil. Childline informed the police, and he was expelled after admitting he had previously taken a knife to school
He returned to his old school in December armed with a hockey stick, modified for use as a weapon, and a knife. Chased by school staff, he attacked a random pupil before being arrested.
This should have been “a watershed event”, the inquiry found. The report said: “It put beyond doubt that AR was motivated by an enduring desire to inflict severe harm on and possibly kill another pupil … taken with the other information available at the time, this should have led all agencies involved to a conclusion that AR posed a high risk of harm to others.”