Warning signs missed: Southport killer Axel Rudakubana’s parents asked police four times for help with teen

Axel Rudakubana parents have asked police for help to deal with their son obsessed with violence in one of a series of calls for his worrying behavior before Southport raidcan be detected.

Officers from Lancashire Police attended the family’s three-bedroom home four times between 2021 and 2022, but each time failed to identify the threat he posed.

The revelations come after the 18-year-old was sentenced to prison at least 52 years in prison for committing a horrific attack which the judge described as “a premeditated attempt to commit indiscriminate mass murder”.

The ruthless killer was not in the dock as the verdict was read on Thursday after he was removed from court for shouting and disrupting the hearing.

He was sentenced to 13 life sentences with a minimum sentence of 51 years and 190 days. He had some time taken from his 52-year sentence for time already served in custody.

Officers said that during their last visit on May 14, 2022 – made after Rudakubana’s father called the police claiming his son’s behavior had escalated because they denied him access to the computer – the family reached out to the police for help with his behavior.

It came just two months after he was found carrying a knife on the bus after his mother reported him missing. Officers took him back to their property in Banks, Lancashire, where they gave the mother advice on how to secure knives in the house.

In another call on November 30, 2021, it was reported that Rudakubana kicked his father, Alphonse, a minibus driver, and damaged his car. However, the father did not want to press charges.

It was the second time police were called to the property that month after that Rudakubana became agitated when the stranger came to the door November 5 of that year.

On each call, officers referred vulnerable children to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), a partnership of agencies including police, education, social services and health teams designed to work together to identify and address risks to children and vulnerable adults.

All police interactions are to be examined in a public inquiry into the crime, which claimed the lives of three girls, after the prime minister said the country had “failed in its duty” to protect the girls from the troubled teenager.

Sir Keir Starmer says Britain is facing a new threat from “young people in their bedrooms” accessing radical materials on the Internet as he warned: “Terrorism has changed”.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Winstanley, of Lancashire Police, pledged to “co-operate fully” with the investigation process to ensure any learning for the police is fully implemented.

Details of the police calls were shared as the scale of missed opportunities to stop the killer was exposed, including three references to the government’s Prevent terrorism program.

One was made by his school in 2019, amid concerns about his behavior and investigations into mass shootings. It was flagged again in February 2021 after a student raised concerns about social media posts about the late Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi.

A third referral was made in April 2021, after a teacher was seen using a school computer to research the 2017 London Bridge terror attack, in which eight were killed and 48 injured by Islamist extremists who rammed pedestrians before carrying out knife attack.

Despite three referrals, it was never considered suitable for an anti-extremist plan.

The police’s senior national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism prevention and prosecution, Vicki Evans, said at the time of the referral that their approach to threats from lone individuals was “fixated on violence” but without a clear ideology, “evolved” and “less developed”.

“In that time, the Prevent partnership’s response to the increasing fixation on extreme violence has evolved,” she said.

“It was less developed than today. We were talking about an increasing number of young people with complex fixations on violence… but who have no clear ideology despite this violent fascination.

“While improvements have been made to help address this challenge, it is right to ask questions about what more needs to be done across the Prevent system and beyond.”

Actions needed include better identification and reducing “ready access to weapons and horrific, toxic, online material,” she added, noting that police have found no evidence to explain why he chose to attack those children or that event.

Just a week before he began his deadly rampage on July 29, 2024 at a Taylor Swift-themed recess class in Southport, Rudakubana booked a taxi to take him to Range High School in Formby, but his father stopped him from leaving.

The teenager, who has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, was expelled from school in 2019 after claims he carried a knife. He later returned and attacked a student with a hockey stick and admitted causing actual bodily harm.

Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said it was “devastating” to think things could have been done to prevent the horrific attack, which also injured eight girls and two adults.

“I think it’s important that all the agencies that had contact with Rudakuban fully engage in the public inquiry to make sure that we can fully understand when the audits were made, what was done about them, the decisions that were made, to make sure that learning can continue in the future,” she said.

“I think we owe it to all the families, and we owe it to all the victims.”