U.K. Counterterror Program Prematurely Closed Case on Teen Killer, Report Says

A British counterterrorism program prematurely closed the case of Axel Rudakubana, a teenager who killed three young girls in a stabbing attack last year, according to an official review published on Wednesday.

The review into the actions of the program, Prevent, which tries to divert vulnerable individuals from becoming terrorists, was commissioned by the government shortly after Mr. Rudakubana carried out a brutal rampage at a dance class in the northern English town of Southport on July 29. He was sentenced to life in prison in late January after pleading guilty to three charges of murder, 10 charges of attempted murder and other charges.

Mr. Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, had been referred three times to Prevent, when he was 13 and 14. But on each occasion, it was found that he did not meet the threshold for further intervention under the program, in part because he had no known ideology. The review said that the multiple referrals for Mr. Rudakubana over a 17-month period, combined with his “high levels of susceptibility,” “should have warranted increased scrutiny.”

In a statement to Parliament on Wednesday, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said that the review had found that “the referral was closed prematurely and there was sufficient concern to keep the case active while further information was collected.”

Three young girls, Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, were killed and eight other children and two adults were injured in Mr. Rudakubana’s attack, which investigators said was premeditated.

Mr. Rudabukana’s referrals to Prevent were made by teachers and school staff between December 2019 and April 2021. In the first instance, a teacher had reported him to the program over a number of concerning behaviors, including that he had been expelled from school for carrying a knife and that he had searched for mass school shootings online using a school account.

After that referral, Mr. Rudakubana had a discussion with Prevent officers, who acknowledged that he was “extremely vulnerable,” but determined that there were no counterterrorism concerns and that he was already receiving support, including mental health treatment. They closed his case in January 2020.

He was referred to Prevent for a second time in February 2021, after a student at his former school became concerned about social media posts by Mr. Rudakubana and told a teacher about concerns for his “potential radicalization,” the report said. Prevent officers determined that the social media posts were not relevant to counterterrorism or extremism and closed the case later that month.

Another teacher made the final Prevent referral in April 2021 after Mr. Rudakubana was observed during a school lesson with tabs open in his internet browser that showed a search for “London Bomb.” He also seemed to have “a passionate interest,” the report said, in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Irish Republican Army and Britain’s security service, MI5. Again, Prevent officers decided that Mr. Rudakubana’s need for support was being met and that there were no further concerns to address. The case was closed on May 10, 2021.

Throughout the years before the attack, Mr. Rudakubana had come into contact with the police, the courts, social services and mental health services. Investigators said that he appeared to have no particular ideology but was obsessed with violence and genocide, as evidenced by the wide range of ultraviolent images, videos and documents found on his digital devices after the attack.

But there was no evidence that he subscribed to any particular political or religious ideology, the police and prosecutors said at his trial. The material he had downloaded included a history of Nazi Germany, documents about the Chechen war, a book on clan cleansing in Somalia, reports on violence in Sri Lanka and an academic report on the Rwandan genocide.

The review published Wednesday said that Prevent officials had placed too much importance on Mr. Rudakubana’s lack of a clear ideology, while underestimating his susceptibility to extremism and his complex needs, including a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and “grievances against his fellow pupils, his teachers, and his family.” The significance of his repeat referrals and his history of violence — including an incident in which he attacked a former classmate with a hockey stick — were “underexplored,” Mr. Jarvis said.

While the report published Wednesday is the first to address what Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain has called “grave questions” about how the state failed the victims of the Southport attack and their families, it will not be the last.

Yvette Cooper, Britain’s home secretary, last month announced a public inquiry into how Mr. Rudakubana “came to be so dangerous” and why the Prevent scheme “failed to identify the terrible risk” he posed.

She acknowledged that in recent years, a growing number of teenagers had been referred to the program Prevent and said that “we need to face up to why this has been happening and what needs to change.”