The government’s flagship counter-terror scheme is facing an overhaul after failing to stop at least five killers in recent years – including Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana.
Sir Keir Starmer has said work to review the Prevent scheme will start now rather than waiting for the end of the public inquiry into the Southport stabbings, which saw three children knifed to death at a dance class in July.
Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent scheme three times – a fact Sir Keir said he knew in the wake of the attack but chose not to share with the public because of the fear that it could prejudice a potential trial.
The 18-year-old’s decision to plead guilty on the first day of his trial yesterday has prompted a fresh wave of criticism of Prevent after a series of killings by perpetrators who had previously been referred to the scheme.
They include Plymouth gunman Jake Davison, who murdered five people during a 12-minute rampage through the city in August 2021.
The 22-year-old, who was obsessed with guns and online ‘intel’ culture, was referred to his Prevent scheme by his mother Maxine in November 2016.
He went on to fatally shoot her before going on to kill Sophie Martyn, three, her father, Lee, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66.
ISIS fanatic Ali Harbi Ali, who fatally stabbed Tory MP Sir David Amess outside a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in 2021, was referred to Prevent in 2014 before his case was closed a year later due to the belief he did not pose a serious threat.
Afterwards, Sir David’s daughter, Katie, condemned the fact that her father’s killer was known to the authorities before his case was closed due to an ‘admin error’ and insisted Prevent ‘isn’t fit for purpose’.
‘We know the guy did it,’ she told The Sunday Times. ‘I just want to know how and why he was allowed to … What has been changed to ensure that this never happens again and that another family doesn’t have to go through the absolute heartbreak and trauma that has just shattered our world?
‘My father gave 40 years of his life, day in, day out, to his people and his country. He is owed the decency and the respect to find out where he was failed.’
Libyan terrorist Khairi Saadallah, 27, who murdered friends James Furlong, 36, Dr David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, in a Reading Park had earlier been referred to Prevent over fears he could carry out a ‘London Bridge-style attack’.
He was found by officials to lack a ‘fixed ideology’, according to reports.
Another terrorist referred to Prevent was Usman Khan, 28, who fatally knifed Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, during a prisoner rehabilitation event next to London Bridge.
An inquest heard his Prevent officers had ‘no specific training’ in handling terrorists.
The Prevent Strategy was launched in 2006 under the New Labour government.
The home secretary of the time, John Reid, warned Britain was facing ‘probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war’ due to a new breed of ‘unconstrained international terrorists’.
A year before, on July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers struck London’s transport network, killing 52 people and injuring over 770 others.
Prevent, which has been reformed several times since its initial launch, has the aim of stopping people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It is intended to to tackle the ideological causes of terrorism and intervene early to support people susceptible to radicalisation.
Under the programme, local authority staff and other professionals such as doctors, teachers and social workers have a duty to flag concerns about an individual being radicalised or drawn into a terrorism.
Less serious reports may be sent to council services, which could include parenting support for families whose children have been watching inappropriate videos online.
Serious reports are forwarded on to Prevent’s Channel stage, at which a panel of local police, healthcare specialists and social workers meeting monthly will consider the case.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was referred three times to Prevent before murderered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
One of the referrals is thought to follow concerns about Rudakubana’s potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, but it was deemed that there was no counter terrorism risk.
His behaviour, including his apparent interest in violence, was assessed by Prevent as potentially concerning.
But he was deemed not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology or pose a terrorist danger and was therefore not considered suitable for the counter-radicalisation scheme.
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the Southport attack this summer, was first referred to Prevent in 2019 when he was 13.
Two more referrals were made in 2021, all when was a school child living in Lancashire.
Each time he was assessed as not being a counter terrorism risk and therefore not suitable for further investigation by the counter-radicalisation programme Channel, which handles Prevent referrals where there is a significant risk of that person being drawn into terrorism.
The Mail has learnt that experts dismissed the case as they were reassured that he was already getting help from other services, including mental health services.
It has been increasingly common for teenagers to be involved with Prevent, with more under-18s being referred per year than at any point since recent records began – although the number who are then judged as needing help has fallen.
A total of 3,918 people under the age of 18 in England and Wales were referred to Prevent in 2023/24, according to Home Office figures.
This is up from 3,773 in 2022/23 and is the highest number for this age group since current data began in 2016/17.
While the number of under-18s referred to Prevent has risen in recent years, the numbers discussed at a Channel panel and adopted as a Channel case have both fallen.
There were 526 under-18s discussed at a Channel panel in 2023/24, down from 655 the previous year and the lowest number since current data began in 2016/17 (609).
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an inquiry into Rudakubana’s case yesterday evening, saying the country needed ‘independent answers’ on Prevent and other agencies’ contact with the ‘extremely violent’ Rudakubana and ‘how he came to be so dangerous’.
And addressing the nation today, Sir Keir suggested a new approach to tackling terrorism was necessary due to a new threat from ‘extreme violence carried out by loners [and] misfits’ after being radicalised in their bedrooms.
‘The predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent – groups like al Qaida,’ he said.
‘That threat, of course, remains but now alongside that we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated 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.’
The PM continued: ‘My concern in this case is we have clearly got an example of extreme violence, individualised violence, that we have to protect our children from and our citizens from.
‘It is a new threat, it’s not what we would have usually thought of as terrorism when definitions were drawn up, when guidelines were put in place, when the framework was put in place and we have to recognise that here today.’
He said the law and framework for responding needed to be appropriate to the ‘new threat’ and whatever changes were necessary in the law would be made.
Sir Keir continued: ‘I do think it’s new. You’ve seen versions of it in America with some of the mass shootings in schools.
‘It is not an isolated, ghastly example. It is, in my view, an example of a different kind of threat and that is why I’m absolutely so determined that we will rise to that challenge and make sure that our law, our response, is capable, appropriate and can deal with that sort of threat.
‘But that is my concern, that is my thinking that this is a new threat – individualised extreme violence, obsessive, often following online viewing of material from all sorts of different sources.
‘It is not a one-off. It is something that we all need to understand and have a shared undertaking to deal with within our society.
‘That is not just the laws on terrorism, the framework on terrorism, it’s also the laws on what we can access online.
‘We still have rules in place in this country about what you can see at a cinema and yet online you can access no end of material.
‘We have to ensure that we can rise to this new challenge and that is what I’m determined to do.’
Addressing the inquiry which was announced yesterday, Sir Keir said failures of state institutions in Rudakubana’s case ‘frankly leap off the page’.
He said: ‘As part of the inquiry launched by the Home Secretary yesterday, I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure – failure which in this case, frankly, leaps off the page.
‘For example, the perpetrator was referred to the Prevent programme on three separate occasions – in 2019 once and in 2021 twice.
‘Yet, on each of these occasions, a judgment was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention – a judgment that was clearly wrong and which failed those families. And I acknowledge that here today.’
Speaking today, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, agreed that Prevent needed to change ‘because of the Internet’.
‘I think a review of Prevent and the mechanisms that exist for dealing with people who are obsessed by violence but not necessarily obsessed by ideology,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘I mean, you’ve got to go back to the 2000s, so there were the terrible 7/7 attacks on the London transport system, and the real threat there was Islamist terrorism coming from al Qaeda, which was group based. There was an emir, a leader.
‘There were preachers, and there was this radicalising ideology, and the idea was you’d scoop up people who were obsessed by this sort of ideology, de-radicalise them, and that would help the public.
‘But we’re living in a different world now, which is the internet world, where people don’t go to individuals. They’re not part of groups. They go to the computer, and they sometimes get a whole mix of stuff, and sometimes, I’m afraid, they just become obsessed by violence.’
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called for all the recommendations of the Shawcross review to be enacted.
He told Times Radio: ‘There was quite a comprehensive review of Prevent by William Shawcross that was published in February of last year… So, one question I’ll be asking the Government is whether they plan to implement the recommendations in the Shawcross report.
‘I think it’s just important the inquiry looks at all of this, gets to the truth both about what happened beforehand, but critically also the Government’s response afterwards, and what they knew when and whether they should have put more information into the public domain.
Rudakubana, of Banks, Lancashire, will be sentenced on Thursday.
He is not expected to receive a whole life order because he was 17 at the time of the murders. The measures can normally only be imposed on criminals aged 21 or over, and are usually only considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.
Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, also admitted the attempted murders of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
He further pleaded guilty to possessing a knife on the date of the attack, production of a biological toxin, ricin, on or before July 29, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
The terrorism offence relates to a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual, which he is said to have possessed between August 29 2021 and July 30 2024.
The ricin, a deadly poison, and the document were found during searches of the home in Old School Close which he shared with his parents, who are originally from Rwanda.
Unrest erupted across the country in the wake of the Southport attack, with mosques and hotels used for asylum seekers among the locations targeted.
In the hours after the stabbing, information spread online which claimed the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.
The day after the attack, thousands turned out for a peaceful vigil in Southport, but later a separate protest outside a mosque in the town became violent, with missiles thrown at police and vans set on fire.
More than 1,000 arrests linked to disorder across the country have been made since the attack, and hundreds have been charged and jailed.