British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave more details to reporters Tuesday at a No. 10 news conference of a public inquiry to be held into how a violence-obsessed teen who killed three young girls in a knifing rampage in July was not stopped beforehand, despite numerous warning signs. Pool Photo by Tolga Akmen/EPA-EFE
Jan. 21 (UPI) — Britain will hold a public inquiry into failings by authorities to prevent a stabbing spree in Stockport in which a teen murdered three young girls and attempted to kill eight other children and two adults.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the announcement in a statement Monday, hours after Axel Rudakubana, 18, pled guilty to murdering Bebe King, 6; Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7; and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the town 210 miles northwest of London on July 29.
Rudakubana, who is expected to receive a life sentence when he is sentenced Thursday, also admitted 12 other charges including possession of a kitchen knife in a public place, producing the biological poison, ricin, and a single terrorism count for possession of an Al Qaeda military training manual.
He was 17 at the time of the attack and therefore not tried as an adult.
“Now that there has been a guilty plea, it is essential that the families and the people of Southport can get answers about how this terrible attack could take place and about why this happened to their children,” said Cooper.
“The responsibility for these terrible murders and the barbaric attack lies with Axel Rudakubana. The Crown Prosecution Service has described him as ‘a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence’ who has ‘shown no sign of remorse.'”
“But the families and the people of Southport also need answers about what happened leading up to this attack,” she said.
Cooper said Rudakubana had come to the attention of the police, courts, youth justice system, mental health services throughout his teenage years, including being referred three times between the ages of 13 and 14 to the government’s anti-radicalization program, Prevent, but all “failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed.”
Calling it a “terrible case,” Cooper said it came amid a recent history of growing numbers of teenagers being referred to Prevent, investigated by counter-terror police, or referred to other agencies over worries regarding serious violence and extremism.
“We need to face up to why this has been happening and what needs to change,” said Cooper who added that while the Home Office had immediately launched a review into why Prevent had concluded Rudakubana was not a threat, independent answers were needed to get to the bottom of the tragedy, including through an inquiry.
Cooper pushed back against criticism that key information about Rudakubana’s past was not released earlier saying it was withheld to ensure the prosecution’s case was not prejudiced.
At a news conference Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer denied “cover-up” allegations that the information Rudakubana was on the radar of counter-terrorism authorities, but had been allowed to remain free, had been kept quiet to prevent riots sparked by his murderous rampage from spiraling out of control.
Starmer, the country’s former Director of Public Prosecutions, reiterated Cooper’s justification, saying the decision was made in line with the law to avoid risking the trial collapsing and that responsibility for the disorder and violence lay solely “with those who perpetrated it.”
“If this trial had collapsed because I or anyone else had revealed crucial details while police were investigating, while the case was being built, while we were awaiting a verdict, then the vile individual who committed these crimes would have walked away a free man.”
However, he acknowledged mistakes had been made.
Starmer said it was time to get to the truth, including whether the killings were a terrorist attack and warned that Britain faced additional danger as terrorism perpetrated by groups such as Al Qaeda was compounded by ” loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety, sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups but fixated on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.”
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