Axel Rudakubana: how much did the authorities know about Southport killer?

Keir Starmer has admitted the failure of the state to stop the Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana "leaps off the page" but has strongly hit back at accusations of a cover-up.

Rudakubana dramatically pleaded guilty yesterday to killing six-year-old Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe (seven) and Alice da Silva Aguiar (nine) at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced there will be a public inquiry into the attacks. But the guilty plea has given the green light for the publication of more information about Rudakubana's past, "all of which poses very serious questions for the state about how it failed to intervene before tragedy struck", said Politico.

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What did the commentators say?

Rudakubana "seemed, on the face of it, an unthreatening figure: a quiet boy from a God-fearing family, slightly built and small for his age", said The Guardian. So how he was able to carry out such a heinous crime "will be the subject of intense scrutiny".

Following the guilty plea, it can be revealed that the 18-year-old had been referred to the counterterrorism Prevent programme three times between 2019 and 2021, but on each occasion a "judgement was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention", said Katy Balls in The Spectator.

The killer had had "contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services", said Sky News. He also had a history of violence. ITV News reported that he was "widely rumoured" to have had a "'kill list'" of pupils he wanted to murder, while The Times said "he had planned an attack on that same school" just a "week before his killing spree", after he had been expelled for carrying a knife.

Both Cooper and Starmer have been quick to stress they could not reveal details of Rudakubana's past for fear of prejudicing the trial, but this has not stopped opposition figures accusing the government and police of orchestrating a cover-up.

Nigel Farage today claimed on X that "cover up Keir" was "once again hiding behind the contempt of court argument", while Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice said the PM has "deliberately misled the British people to continue suiting his own narrative". It follows calls by shadow home secretary Chris Philp for the public "to know who in government knew what and when, as well as why the authorities may have withheld some information from the public".

This drew stinging criticism from the Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges. He wrote on social media that while he understood that "conspiracy theorists" were "peddling their crazy Southport lines", what is "unforgivable is politicians – and even some journalists – who know precisely what restrictions are imposed when major cases are pending suddenly pretend to be ignorant of them".

What next?

Much of the "controversy" surrounding the case has arisen from the decision not to classify the attack as terrorism, said The i Paper. This came after police revealed in October that Rudakubana had also been charged with production of the biological toxin ricin and possession of an Al-Qaeda training manual – a terror offence.

Despite this, the BBC said his case has "never been treated as terror-related by police as he did not appear to follow an ideology, such as Islamism or racial hatred, and instead appeared to be motivated by an interest in extreme violence".

The decision by the Prevent panel that Rudakubana was not motivated by a terrorist ideology or posed a terrorist danger is "likely to be at the heart" of the upcoming public inquiry, said The Times.

There was nothing in Starmer's latest comments to suggest that this will be "any sort of whitewash", said The Guardian. If anything he "sounded like someone happy for it to be as damning as it needs to be".