Southport report lays bare the failures of authorities - and the attacker's parents

What I mean is, he had done those things and they had been dealt with so no one in authority was going to lock him up "just in case". They simply don't do that. Parents who do ask for help are turned away and told to go on a parenting course. That's it.

Like I said, I am an adopter. I know many families with really, really challenging adolescent boys/young men. The parents are supposed to fix everything.

I guess the parents in this case were completely stumped as to what to do. If they reported him, he might kill them - they would have learned that social services/police etc weren't going to offer any practical help.

Fact is, there are no services for what is basically internment for young people. Secure units are hard to come by and are mainly for those at risk of self harm, who have a mental health diagnosis, or seen at great risk, again to themselves, through being out of parental control.

Threaten to kill your parents for example or even harm them, nothing much will happen. In this case, there was no mental health condition to get him admitted, so that was the end of that.

We need proper services for this kind of situation.

Headteacher Joanne Hodson told the public inquiry that, from his first day, she realised the teenager was 'very high risk', with a manner 'devoid of any remorse'.
But when she tried to raise the risk he posed to others, Mrs Hodson said she was accused by children's mental health worker Samantha Steed of 'racially stereotyping [Rudakubana] as 'a black boy with a knife''.
Mrs Hodson told the inquiry that the accusation of 'racial profiling' had 'effectively shut me up'.
The warning about the risk Rudakubana posed – which featured in a draft of his education, health and care plan – remained in the document.

But parts were rewritten, such as a reference to his 'sinister' internet use being replaced with the word 'inappropriate'.
Inquiry chairman Sir Adrian Fulford concluded that it was 'unwise' for Ms Steed 'to raise issues of racial stereotyping'.

While there was no suggestion she made a 'direct accusation of racial stereotyping against Mrs Hodson, the fact that such a contentious topic was raised nevertheless served to 'close down' Mrs Hodson,' Sir Adrian wrote.
He added that 'Mrs Hodson was raising a valid point about the need for a risk assessment', and this was 'another example of insufficient emphasis being placed on the risks that child may present to others.'

The inquiry into the 2024 murders concluded yesterday that it was the 'catastrophic' failures of Rudakubana's parents and other agencies which meant that chances to prevent the attack were missed.
Sir Adrian said if his parents had done 'what they morally ought to have' and reported his suspicious behaviour, he would not have been free on the day of the attack.
The inquiry at Liverpool Town Hall heard that the killer's autism had been used as an excuse for his past behaviour while a 'merry-go-round' of referrals and assessments meant no agency understood how dangerous the teenager was.
At the conclusion of his 760-page report into the attack, Sir Adrian called for the end of a 'culture' of agencies passing responsibility between each other.

Those he criticised included Lancashire Police, the government's counter-extremism service Prevent, various NHS mental health services, and the County Council among other services. He said: 'This failure lies at the heart of why [Rudakubana] was able to mount the attack, despite so many warning signs of his capacity for fatal violence.'
Now, Sir Adrian has called for urgent reforms adding that he hopes this will mark a 'genuine turning point'.
He described Rudakubana as a 'aggressive, near-total recluse, who bullied and threatened his family and unashamedly lied to officials'.

The inquiry revealed a pattern of mental health services and social care treating the teenager's autism spectrum disorder as an 'excuse' for his behaviour rather than seeing that in Rudakubana's case this 'significantly increased the risk that he posed'.
Sir Adrian said different agencies showed a 'scant regard' and a 'lack of curiosity' over Rudakubana's internet usage.
'I have no hesitation in concluding that the degrading, violent and misogynistic material that [Rudakubana] was viewing online contributed to and 'fed' his already unhealthy fascination with violence,' he wrote.

They were having meetings and talking about it. But nothing was actually done.

the issue with interventions, therapies and anger management classes is that a child has to want to engage at some level. It’s not a passive process. You can’t do therapy to someone. You can’t make them attend and you can’t force them to listen. You can encourage, you can use creative interventions to help build relationships, you can create a safe space, build trust, but if they don’t want to make changes and don’t want to engage or talk, they just won’t.

Let's stop this victim stuff. The people who should have been protected were those murdered and injured by this horrific attack. They are the victims.

I feel like this has a lot in common with child neglect/a child being killed at the hands of their parent or step parent, Sara Shariff being a recent case that comes to mind ...but there have been dozens. That when a time line is bullet pointed in black and white , all the cumulative evidence is there, for an incident waiting to happen. But there never seems to be a sharing of information between various authorities, or agencies - which in the age of email and digital storing of information, shouldn't be that much of a leap...?

However even shared information and knowledge is limited if there isnt facility or resource to actually implement any further action, or detain someone.

Since the 1990s weve had "lessons will be learned" statements after children have died and yet (from successive governments) we rarely actually hear what those lessons are or any new legislation, initiatives , or funding being brought in to prevent further tragedy. In fact what we generally hear are reduced budgets or reduced staffing levels in social services, mH services, prisons police etc....

But not training them in military roles using weapons or civil service working with vulnerable people, that would be unwise. Maybe if they did litter picking, working at a recycle plant, cleaning, groundskeeping, admin work but nothing where there is risk of harm to others.

There are so many threads on mumsnet from parents with violent sons desperate for help, and can’t find a solution.
What is the solution? I think perhaps national service would be a good thing. At least they are out and exercising and working with strict rules in place.

Is it known why he attacked this particular place? Why does a 17 year old violent unstable male even know about a lovely local dance school and lovely TS dance workshop? How did he choose this particular target? Did he know any of the girls or workshop leaders? Had he attend this dance school himself previously?

It's difficult to comment on his dad but I do think he comes across as entitled, haughty and defensive of his delinquent evil offspring. That is very telling.

Yes I think its predictable that the reports cite all the 'failures' of various agencies and organisations and the 'failures' of the parents. These sorts of reports all say the same thing, it absolves society of responsbility, absolves successive governments of that

You only have to read thread after thread on here where someone raises a complaint, niggle, argument, concern about something that affects them or others and you get 'be kind', 'dont judge', essentially as someone said above, the individual is way more important now than the collective. And by sheer coincidence Im sure, that mentality and system is far cheaper for society to manage.

I knew when this happened what sort of boy/man this was, just like the ones I work with and there is nothing for them, nothing to protect others around them. I knew when this happened what the review would say, that the authorities had failed

And I would like to ask the report writers exactly what would have been done with him, to him, for him, what could have been different if the authorities had not 'failed' him, because they were all working within their remits.

My issue with all this is what could actually have been done?

What are the options to ID what help might be needed and how does the process work to get the help needed? If the help needed is isolation and being held somewhere secure, where exactly is that?

If nobody knows what to do or where to refer and nobody knows what to do with these people if they are then what?

I think if the government is serious about action there will be a law introduced through which AR:s parents would have been prosecuted. It was the deliberate non informing of appropriate authorities which is surely criminal along the lines of assisting an offender.

The parents probably have a life long anonymity order and state so
Port now as there will be a real threat of community vigilante action.

"Prevent not really effectively preventing.
Inadequate risk assessments
Keenness of police to help someone they perceived as vulnerable leading to not properly considering the risk that person presents to others
Many missed opportunities to intervene
Behaviours of offenders (especially online) not 'meaningfully examined'
Systemic issues."

But surely what happens when you have underfunded services with overworked staff working under narrow remits( i.e prevent deals only with radicalisation. ) due to sustained and continued efficiency drives, then spend a lot of money on a review which has plenty of time to scrutinise decisions.

Is it any surprise no agency has taken ownership / charge when the hierarchy of who is supposed to do this has not been set out and even if it were they probably do not have the resources to meaningfully examine behaviour?

When I was still working in a Scottish secondary, we had cases where we called in the police because a pupil had brought in a knife or had used a tool as a weapon. There was always some excuse as to why the police didn't need to act.

30+ years ago, I took a piece of creative writing produced by a 13 yr old boy to the boy's Guidance Teacher. In it, the main character stalked and raped one of our young teachers. [ETA The Guidance Teacher laughed. "Oh, Weary! What have you been teaching those boys?"]

After he left school, I found out that he'd carried out the attack on someone else in real life. First offence. Under 21. A very light sentence.

On being released, he offended once again and is unlikely to see the light of day again.

I'll add that all the cases that I've mentioned here involved white Scottish males. In one case, the excuse made for not taking things further was that the boy had ADHD.

It's getting worse up here: courts are not told to make allowances for those under the age of 25.

His parents should be prosecuted. What reasonable person watches their son, who they know is violent and has amassed an arsenal of weapons, leave the house after years of never leaving the house and thinks "good for him, he's being brave and going on a walk". That's so beyond what any reasonable person would do. The very least they should have done is call the police.

We refer angry violent boys to Prevent, mainly because there isnt anything else, I always know they're not going to meet the criteria and they dont. There needs to be another service for them

Having just read the phase 1 report, I’m absolutely appalled at the lack of joined up collaboration by the supposed professionals which, in combination with the total lack of parental control - indeed at any basic attempts of parental control - led to this horrific attack.

What lessons can we learn?

The only knife a kid needs is a dinner knife, at the dinner table.

We need to stop kids carrying them. If that means changing the legal system from it's current nonsense then so be it.

A kid died round the corner because other kids hadn't been stopped from carrying knives and were not punished for threatening people with knives.
What will we learn different?

The report is 267 pages long and details countless opportunities that his parents, professionals (including police, PREVENT and mental health service) and retailers had to prevent this awful tragedy. The danger he posed was evident for years.

"to have men of a certain age living away from society and under supervision"

What they really need is to be grounded in reality. Forced to be involved in a community, having a meaningful role to keep them busy.

So many of these disturbed men are isolated, reclusive, living in virtual worlds of violent/fantasy media, no longer caring about other people or the effects of their actions. Need to drag them away from it.

I watched a lot of the evidence. AR was paid by dad for showering but he also earned money from some kind of online family ancestry business he was running.

He was absolutely dominating that household and everyone seemed in fear of him. His Mum was working night shifts and sounded ground down with his behaviour and ptsd from seeing much of her family killed back in Congo. I think the dad had experienced similar. They seemed to stress shielding their children from talk about what happened and discussion of the barbarity. his elder brother is disabled and needed a lot of practical support.

AR seemed to have fixed views of the world and his experiences and saw himself as a victim of bullying by various peers even though no one else seemed to. Basically seemed to see malign intent in behaviours of others where there was none.

AR became a recluse during lockdown nd refused to leave the house or engage in society. The family seemed to take advantage of the circumstances to stop professionals coming into the house and seeing AR and professionals didn’t force it. Partially because of confusion about lockdown rules which were ever changing at that time.

Anyway, AR’s behaviour particularly towards dad was becoming increasingly dangerous. He poured oil over his head and threatened to set him alight. On the one hand he seemed to be fearing he was going to kill him but on the other hand he seemed adamant about not giving up on him and being frank to services about what was going on, knowing that if he did he would be removed from the home. it’s hard to understand the determination to keep him home, whether it was cultural, religious or boiling frog experience of living with someone who became incrementally violent over a long time. Also there was a sense of the dad being a difficult and obstructive man and I can imagine AR getting his tendency to view things in a different way to everyone else from his dad. Dad seemed to be both victim and perpetrator who encouraged AR to deal with perceived bullying by going in harder in response.

AR almost never left the house in 2 years and pretty much the less than handful of times he did it was with intent of doing harm. He was apprehended every time as far as I can tell AR didn’t lie about his plans either when he was picked up. So on the day he left the house to do what he did the whole family, including his brother sounded if they were bracing themselves but according to them, hoping it was just for an innocent walk even though he’d not done that before. I wondered if he had developed some kind of self consciousness with the not leaving the house and all his pictures show him wearing a mask or covering his face. Anyway, An arsenal of weapons had been ordered and delivered to that small house over the 2 weeks previous and there is no way they didn’t know the contents. The dad was taking receipt of them. I believe the parents denied knowledge but the judge wasn’t buying it.

One of the main services working with him had a ridiculous policy of not reading notes of clients before developing a relationship. Apparently to go in with an open mind. That’s frankly insane.

Most agencies seemed to have a template of action points to follow and if the child doesn’t fit the template then nothing seems to change. They just get discharged and flagged as unsuitable for the service but not necessarily referred to a more intensive one. The pressure to close cases was manifest with pretty much every agency.

The testimony of the owner of the website who sold him the knife was memorable. He got a bit of a savaging. I mean what wholesome purpose is there for the majority of the sales of the types of knives sold on sites like that. Making money off the back of this knife epidemic is repulsively shameful.

Also, I should say that some of what I have written may be slightly inaccurate. I am going off my memory which is shocking these days.

I can believe all of it.

I'm having the same issues trying to get authorities to take the threat a schizophrenic neighbour poses seriously.

Mental health services won't talk to me, local authority won't even reply to an email I send, and the police can only arrest him and then release him under investigation before the CPS decide not to prosecute for whatever bullshit reason.

The man has threatened sexual violence, broken into homes, smashed public property, and shouts neo nazi slogans out on his balcony at 3am.

I've said to the local authority today he's the next Valdo Calocane. I got told to watch my tone.

Could you possibly elaborate on the training? Sounds like it was outrageous and/or utterly useless.

There seem to be lots of disturbed young men obsessed with violence, death, destruction, gore etc. Some do horrific things to animals, such as mutilating kittens and blowing up sheep, others collect weapons and plan massacres. The fact it's ignored because "it's not a terrorist ideology" is idiotic. It needs naming, watching out for, and properly punishing/treating before the little twats move onto (real) humans.

The head teacher of The Acorn school he was sent to, and where he was found to have a knife on him, was told she was 'racially profiling' him. This is ludicrous. If an individual is actually doing or has done something, how can it be 'profiling'? This is similar thinking to young black men being 'overrepresented' in mental health services and so Valdo Colocane was left free to butcher people. The rights of perpetrators now seem to take precedence over the safety of the rest of us.