Keir Starmer faces an ordeal in Southport today as he orders an investigation how the state failed to stop the killer.
The Prime Minister will hold a press conference at Downing Street after condemning the 'failures' in the Axel Rudakubana case and acknowledging that people were right to 'demand answers'.
But he is expected to reject accusations of a “cover-up” of terrorist links in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity, which was followed by a wave of riots across the country. The authorities are convinced that they cannot risk the case collapsing.
Rudakubana yesterday pleaded guilty to murdering three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July.
It has emerged he was referred to the anti-extremism program Prevent three times over concerns about his fixation with violence.
But despite this and contact with other government agencies, authorities failed to stop the attack which claimed the lives of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
will hold a press conference at Downing Street after condemning the 'failures' in the Axel Rudakubana case and acknowledging that people were right to 'demand answers'
Merseyside Police today released this mugshot of Axel Rudakubana, 18, from Banks, Lancashire, after he pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to all 16 charges with which he was charged
Announcing an investigation last night, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the country needed “independent answers” about Prevent and other agencies' contact with the “extremely violent” Rudakubana and “how he became so dangerous”.
Following Rudakubana's guilty pleas, Sir Keir described the 18-year-old as “vile and sick” and said “serious questions needed to be answered” about how the state “failed” to protect the three girls.
The Prime Minister added: 'Britain will rightly demand answers, and we will leave no stone unturned in that quest.'
In addition to the three murders, Rudakubana admitted ten attempted murders, possession of a knife, production of a biological poison, ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to someone committing or preparing terrorist acts.
The terrorism offense relates to a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual.
It is believed that he also possessed numerous other documents on violent subjects, including A Concise History of Nazi Germany, The Myth of the Remote-Controlled Car Bomb, and Native American Torture and Cultural Violence.
Sources said the discovered material showed an “obsession with extreme violence,” but there was no evidence he ascribed to any political or religious ideology or “fought for a cause.”
With some opposition figures claiming Rudakubana's contact with authorities has been 'covered up', Sir Keir is likely to face questions about why this information was not published earlier.
Britain's reform leader Nigel Farage insisted he was “right all along” when he claimed in the summer that information had been withheld from the public.
But Ms Cooper said information about Rudakubana's background could not be made public earlier “to avoid jeopardizing the legal proceedings or biasing any possible jury trial, in accordance with the normal rules of the British legal system”.
Questions are also likely to arise about why the charges related to the possession of ricin and Al Qaeda's training manual were not made public three months after the teenager's arrest.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said there are many questions that “remain unanswered about what went wrong”.
Welcoming the announcement of a public inquiry, he said: “We also need to know who in the government knew what and when, as well as why authorities withheld certain information from the public.”
Asked whether he has confidence in the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, he told Times Radio: 'The Prevent program is a long-term programme. It handles approximately 7,000 referrals per year.
'There was a quite comprehensive review of Prevent by William Shawcross that was published in February last year… So one question I will ask the Government is whether they intend to implement the recommendations in the Shawcross report.
A car burns after overturning during a protest in Middlesbrough on August 4, 2024
Police officers at Rudakubana's home on Old School Close in Banks, Lancashire, last October
At the age of 11, Rudakubana appeared dressed as Doctor Who in a television advert for BBC Children In Need after being recruited through a casting agency, it is understood.
'I think it's just important that the investigation looks into all of this and finds out the truth, both about what happened beforehand, but critically also about the government's response afterwards, and what they knew when and whether they could provide more information should have brought into the public domain.
'It appears they have withheld information about the perpetrator, possibly on advice from the CPS.
'William Shawcross has raised questions about that, saying that if you leave a void, speculation fills it, and William Shawcross is clearly an expert lawyer, and also says that you can say a lot about these incidents in retrospect.
“But in this case, the government clearly did not share any information it had in its possession.”
