New evidence shows significantly more missed opportunities to stop Southport killer

New evidence has emerged of earlier opportunities to have stopped the Southport attacker before he was able to murder three young girls, according to the lawyer representing their families.

The parents of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar will today give evidence to the inquiry which was set up to establish firstly how Axel Rudakubana was able to carry out the attack last July and also to identify lessons to avoid a repeat.

In July, a major review found the government’s Prevent counter-terrorism scheme missed an opportunity to intervene in Rudakubana’s life and potentially turn him away from violence.

Officials with Prevent had been warned three times by teachers that Rudakubana was obsessed with violence – but the case was closed on each occasion because he was not found to have a terrorist ideology.

A Thug in the making

Chris Walker, the lawyer representing the families of Bebe, Elsie and Alice said: “We know there have been failings with the Prevent process but, as we are delving deeper and the deeper into the evidence which has been disclosed to us continuously, it is becoming apparent that there were more opportunities and more failings before the Prevent failings.

“It would be inappropriate for me to comment on what exactly those are at this stage. It is evident that the problems with him occurred several years before the Prevent system failed.”

Mr Walker said the families wanted “individual accountability, systemic accountability and systemic reform” to come from the inquiry and an understanding of how and why mistakes occurred.

“We can’t have a system which is designed to prevent evil murderers committing tragedies of this nature being able to continue with their conduct because of individual errors,” he said.

“The system must be robust enough to absorb individual errors to ensure these tragedies will never happen again.”

The Southport inquiry, chaired by Sir Adrian Fulford, was set up to examine the circumstances surrounding the attack and the events leading up to it. It will examine Rudakubana’s history and interactions with local services and agencies and their decision-making and information-sharing.

Rudakubana is serving a life sentence with a minimum of 52 years for murdering six year old Bebe, Elsie, who was seven, and Alice, aged nine, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event.

He seriously injured eight more girls and two adults who had tried to stop him.

Between 2019 and 2021 teachers reported him three times to Prevent under a national duty to alert police and other agencies to potential extremists. On each occasion his case was rejected.

The injury has already heard evidence from the parents of other children about the life-changing impact on them of what happened inside the dance studio on 29 July last year.

Families ‘cannot grieve’

For the parents of Bebe, Elsie and Alice, Mr Walker said, the process has been a difficult one.

“The families remain traumatised. It has been approximately 14 months since this horrific attack occurred. Within that time they’ve conducted themselves with dignity and, as a consequence of that, they present extremely well.

“The reality is when they close their front door they remain traumatised and this inquiry is going to continue with that traumatisation for another 12 months, at least, so they’ve not been able to start the next stage of their grieving process.

“But the families are committed to the inquiry. They appreciate and understand the significance of it and the reason for it and they remain committed.”