The conclusions of the first phase of the investigation of the Southport triple murderin which three girls died and 10 other people were injured, have focused on the “inaction” and in the “failures” of British security agencies in preventing the attack, which caused a wave of violent riots in several cities in the United Kingdom in July 2024. The independent commission’s report, published this Monday after a year of investigation, has concluded that the attack was “foreseeable” y “avoidable” and points to mismanagement and communication errors by the intelligence services.
The document has highlighted five fundamental mistakes in preventing attack. Firstly, it highlights that no security agency assumed the responsibility of evaluating and managing the serious risk represented by the perpetrator of the events, Axel Rudakubana. It also points to the loss of essential information about the young man, 17 years old at the time of the attacks, and points out that his dangerous behaviorsincluding their internet searcheswere “erroneously” attributed to his autism spectrum disorder.
“The signs that indicated that Axel Rudakubana was heading towards a serious violence they expressed themselves repeated and unequivocal. However, the systems and organizations responsible for the protection of citizens They did not act with cohesion, nor the necessary urgency or clarity,” assured the president of the commission, Adrian Fulford. “The fact that agencies repeatedly transfer risk to third parties and reduce or minimize their own involvement does not constitute effective risk management nor responsible.”
The report has also focused on the parental permissiveness of the young man, who had knives and other dangerous weapons at homeand in the fact that they did not properly inform the authorities of their son’s behavior in the days before the attack. “If at the end of July 2024 – including the same day of the attack – the full extent of the attacks had been communicated to the authorities family concerns of Axel Rudakubana, it is almost certain that this tragedy would have been avoided,” added Fulford.
Wave of violence
Rudakubana was sentenced in January 2025 to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 52 years in prisonfor the deaths of Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice da Silva Aguiar, three girls aged between six and nine who were participating in a dance class in Southport, northwest England, on July 29, 2024. The spread of false information about the origin of the attacker on social networks caused a wave of xenophobic violence which forced thousands of police officers to be mobilized and to protect accommodation for asylum seekers, which were targets of attacks by groups linked to the extreme right.
Citizen indignation increased shortly after, when it came to light that the author of the attacks had been investigated up to three times by the program. Preventcreated to detect radical or extremist attitudes and to prevent terrorist acts. Rudakubana had gone to school with a knife and had searched shooting information in schools and on creation of explosives. Despite the warnings, the authorities closed the three investigations and took no preventive measures.
“This failure is the fundamental reason why AR was able to carry out the attack, despite the numerous warning signs about their ability to commit acts of deadly violence,” Fulford said. “If, as a society, we want to avoid a repeat of what happened in the Axel Rudakubana case, this culture must end.”
The commission of inquiry, created by the Labor Government, will now begin the second phase of their report, which will focus on how agencies identify and manage people at risk of committing acts of extreme violence; the role of the Internet and social networks in influencing this type of behavior; the effectiveness of laws used to control harmful activities; and whether current regulations on the sale and possession of weapons are strong enough to protect citizens.
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