Families 'shocked' at missed chances to stop killer

The families of children murdered by Southport killer Axel Rudakubana were "shocked" by how many "missed opportunities" to stop him there had been, their solicitor has said.

Sara Stanger told BBC Breakfast the parents of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar were "relieved" that the criminal case was over and glad that a public inquiry would be held.

But Ms Stanger said it was clear the 18-year-old – who was jailed for 52 years on Thursday – "fell through gaps" between different agencies who might have spotted the danger he posed.

After Rudakubana pleaded guilty last Monday to murdering the girls and attempting to kill eight other children and two adults, it emerged he had had multiple referrals to the government's anti-radicalisation programme Prevent.

Ms Stanger said the families hoped the inquiry would reveal "the gaps" Rudakubana fell through.

"I think they want to find out what happened in detail," she said.

"Were there opportunities missed? Would those missed opportunities have changed the outcome?"

Rudakubana was excluded from Range High School in Formby in October 2019 after he began having problems with violence. He returned in December with hockey stick and assaulted a pupil, breaking their wrist.

He later attended The Acorns School, which provides specialist education for those with extra needs. Lancashire Child Safeguarding Partnership said Rudakubana "struggled to re-integrate into school" following his exclusion from Range High.

It also said Lancashire Police responded to five calls from his home address, between October 2019 and May 2022, relating to concerns about his behaviour.

Rudakubana called Childline several times as a young teenager, eventually telling the service he was going to take a knife into school because of racial bullying.

This was one of the incidents that led to him be excluded from Range High School.

The NSPCC said Rudakubana's last call to Childline was "sufficiently serious to breach a threshold" which led Childline to inform local authorities of its concerns in 2019.

"It's clear that he fell through gaps in between different agencies," Ms Stanger said.

Plugging those gaps is going to be vital."

Online safety is also expected to be a key part of the inquiry, according to Ms Stanger.

After Rudakubana admitted his crimes the Crown Prosecution Service described him as a "young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence".

Following the attack, police found he had documents about Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide, the wars in Chechnya and Somalia, punishments in slave plantations, and remote-controlled car bombs.

There was also a PDF file of an al-Qaeda training manual.

Images relating to the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Korea, as well as images of knives and machetes, were also found on tablets.

Minutes before he left to travel to the dance class, Rudakubana is thought to have searched the social media platform X for the 2024 Sydney church attack, in which Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and five others were stabbed.

Rudakubana's internet browsing history on a laptop was shortly deleted before he went out.

Ms Stanger said internet and social media providers needed to help parents with the "toolkit" to protect their children.

"Most of our children have an incredibly powerful computer in their pocket with their phone," she said.

"I think every parent has been worried by this process.

"They have seen that within a few clicks this defendant was able to access horrifying materials.

"We need to work together."

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