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That picture of the Southport killer

1000 replies

User09678 · 20/01/2025 17:11

That has been circulating today.

Remember that sweet boy that was in all the reports at the time? The one who looked about nine?

Can anyone think of any other serious criminal who has pictures of them as a child out in the press?

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13
Alltheyearround · 20/01/2025 18:55

JandamiHash · 20/01/2025 17:40

YANBU, it’s disgusting that the focus at the time seemed to be on “Let’s make him out to be angelic”. And then it turns out after people had been imprisoned for “falsely” linking him to Islamic extremism, it turns it he was an Islamic extremist. Starmer is a joke, far more concerned by not upsetting people than protecting children

He's not though. He had some materials from Islamic extremism but his crime has not been classed as to do with this. He was mainly interested in violence as a thing and not some kind of means to an end. He also had a thing about Hitler and Ghengis Khan. Police have said it was not a terrorist i,e, politically motivated attack. He seems to have just wanted to hurt and kill, that was his motive - sickening as it is.

I did look at the photo and think he looked particularly demonic.

Not sure we can read too deeply into a photo though. No one would have picked Lucy Letby out from the crowd.

People who do awful things come in all available forms of humanity.

The question of how he came to be this way is yet to be solved, but there will be many many years in prison to unpick that - was he mentally ill or just wicked?

What about his autism, did this have a role? Before anyone jumps on me, I have 3 close members of the family with ASD, and of course most people with ASD live ordinary blameless and productive lives.

However, there was a right wing thug who has recently been imprisoned for stabbing a refugee during the summer riots last year. The judge didn't mince his words when it came to the wickedness of what he had done but think he may have mentioned that ASD may have played a part, i.e made him that bit more vulnerable to getting sucked in to a strong ideology. It could be seen as a special interest (gone down a bad path) and is also very black and white thinking.

Not saying it is an excuse for either Axel or the other man (as I recall he had Adolf's signature tattooed on his arm)

cakeorwine · 20/01/2025 18:55

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 18:54

What? You prefer to blame ND people instead?

I am asking you what evidence you have to support the statement "He didn't have mental health issues".

EasternStandard · 20/01/2025 18:56

Where a pp picking up he had diagnosed mh issues or various conditions?

Or is it just speculation

BlueSilverCats · 20/01/2025 18:56

EsmaCannonball · 20/01/2025 18:51

I hope the fact that there will be no trial doesn't shut down questions into this case. This was someone on the radar of the authorities, referred to Prevent several times, and yet still able to commit the worst of crimes. The terrorism narrative was quashed instantly, allowing anyone who raised it to be labelled a right-wing bigot, and then the information about the terrorism charges and the ricin was slipped out quietly later. The public don't like it when they feel like they are being managed rather than told the truth just because that truth raises verboten issues.

The truth is this was not a terrorism attack. I could have those same things in my house for stupid/innocent reasons, never commit a violent crime and I'd still be charged with a terror offence. That doesn't mean I am a terrorist.

If I did commit a violent crime, then they would look at intent and motivation. Which could or could not be terrorism related.

samarrange · 20/01/2025 18:56

Whether he has mental health issues I do not know. I'd assume his behaviour isn't exactly indicative of somebody mentally well, but I'm not an expert.

Whisper it quietly, but: Mental health is a spectrum, and most of it is socially constructed. Anyone who studies psychology or psychiatry very quickly realises that there are a lot of arbitrary boundaries.

We made mental health a medical speciality (psychiatry) in the 19th century back when we didn't really have a germ theory of (physical) disease. Since then we have sequenced the genome of thousands of pathogens, but we still can't say what "causes" depression or psychosis, in any comparable way to how we can say that this or that virus or bacterium causes flu or tuberculosis.

Of course you have people with, say, traumatic brain injury whose behaviour is radically changed by what is obviously a physiological cause, and you have objectively measurable damage to the brain in stroke or dementia patients, but beyond that we don't really know what "depression" or "anxiety" or "autism" are, other than a series of behaviours that we measure with tests of those things.

This is not intended as a rant against mental health professionals, who mostly do a great job, but to some extent they are in the dark like everyone else, especially when it comes to the intersection of "not right in the head" and premeditated violence. We cannot predict whom, among the many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with psychological profiles not dissimilar to this kid's, will go on to harm anybody, and we probably wouldn't want to live in a society where the authorities had the power to imprison such people on a preventive basis, when they have as yet committed no crime.

PeppyGreenFinch · 20/01/2025 18:56

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 18:45

There has been a court drawing for some time.

Court drawings are treated differently to photography.

soupfiend · 20/01/2025 18:56

Whippetlovely · 20/01/2025 18:25

People on this thread that don't think this was terror related are blind. They found terrorist documents in his house alongside ricin. He was referred to prevent. I couldn't give a shit if he was white black or brown call a spade a spade and stop with the bullshit apologists. Hopefully the full truth will finally be revealed during the trial because it's been handled terribly so far and it's incredibly insulting to those little girls and their parents.

What sort of cause was he advocating then? What was the aim?

Terrorism has quite a specific definition. It would seem he did have material from terrorist organisations in order to learn about effective killing strategies.

Thats not the same as being a terrorist in the sense of terrorism.

Coldanddamp · 20/01/2025 18:57

I think that this case has shown we have gaping holes in our definition of terrorism.

Agree.

Digdongdoo · 20/01/2025 18:57

EasternStandard · 20/01/2025 18:56

Where a pp picking up he had diagnosed mh issues or various conditions?

Or is it just speculation

It was all over X and similar. But I guess that information is selectively reliable....

SulkySeagull · 20/01/2025 18:58

@DreadPirateRobots in this instance absolutely. The Beeb were literally begging the public not assume this was about race, or Islam extremism. ‘It was his mental ‘elf! Here’s a pic of him as a small child! Look how sweet he was! He’s Welsh don’t you know!’

Only it WAS about race and Islamic extremism, he was a big old racist, Jhiad extremist and looked like something out of a horror movie when he committed the crime.

TheseCalmSeas · 20/01/2025 18:58

There were photos over the weekend of the kids who beat the trans teen

LivelySwan · 20/01/2025 18:58

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ByQuaintAzureWasp · 20/01/2025 18:58

Starmer knew within hours that this evil excuse for a human being had been making ricin at home and had an Islamic terrorist manual. Yet he, and his government led us to all beleive this was not an islamaphobic attack at all because "he was born in Wales".
They think we were born yesterday.
We were "mugged off".

PandoraSox · 20/01/2025 18:59

NoSoupForU · 20/01/2025 18:40

This post is in incredibly poor taste.

The trial date was set before Trump's inauguration date was set. That he pled guilty at a pretrial hearing was unexpected. There really isn’t a full presence in court for such hearings because they're something of a nothing.
No conspiracy there.

Mug shots aren't released until guilt is proven precisely because they're photographs taken of people in situations of extreme stress so typically they won't exactly look tip top.

The picture that was circulated at the time was taken from social media. It was a group photo taken in school. By all accounts his family didn't really use social media so there wasn't really anything else for the media to find and use.

He isn't an Islamic extremist. He isn't even Muslim. He's a black Christian.

People did notice the red flags. He was referred to Prevent multiple times because of his fixation with violence. By all accounts there was involvement from the authorities at various points preceeding his crime too. There is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that his home was anything other than stable and loving. His elder brother thrived, was seemingly a very intelligent high achiever who was popular at school.

Whether he has mental health issues I do not know. I'd assume his behaviour isn't exactly indicative of somebody mentally well, but I'm not an expert.

And as for the riots, there is no excuse for the violence portrayed by people who did not know or understand the facts, but merely used it as a vehicle to push their agenda against foreign people and those with brown skin.

👏👏👏

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 18:59

cakeorwine · 20/01/2025 18:55

I am asking you what evidence you have to support the statement "He didn't have mental health issues".

Where is your evidence that he does? You have none, you are associating people with mental health difficulties with this horrendous crime simply because you can’t cope with the fact that some people commit horrendous crimes. There is no more reason to think he had mental health difficulties than a terrorist does.

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 19:00

EasternStandard · 20/01/2025 18:56

Where a pp picking up he had diagnosed mh issues or various conditions?

Or is it just speculation

Pure speculation that is incredibly offensive to those with mental health difficulties.

Justwanttocomment · 20/01/2025 19:00

What we really should be talking about is knife crime and violence against women. All this conspiracy stuff is derailing the actual issues.

Coldanddamp · 20/01/2025 19:00

His intent was mass murder, violence, to cause terror but that doesn't make him a terrorist under the current definition.

cakeorwine · 20/01/2025 19:00

ByQuaintAzureWasp · 20/01/2025 18:58

Starmer knew within hours that this evil excuse for a human being had been making ricin at home and had an Islamic terrorist manual. Yet he, and his government led us to all beleive this was not an islamaphobic attack at all because "he was born in Wales".
They think we were born yesterday.
We were "mugged off".

What evidence would you need to change your mind about him being "An Islamic terrorist?"

istheheatingonyet · 20/01/2025 19:01

JHound · 20/01/2025 17:31

Yes but the conspiracy theorists won’t buy this….

Edited

What is the conspiracy please?

LivelySwan · 20/01/2025 19:01

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This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

HollyBerryz · 20/01/2025 19:01

Mass murdering children is hardly the action of someone with a sane mind is it. By the very nature of some crimes it's obvious there must be MH issues of some sort.

ByQuaintAzureWasp · 20/01/2025 19:01

JHound · 20/01/2025 17:34

What do you think they would possibly know about a 17 year old teen who was by all accounts a loner?

Don't be so naive, his house would have been raided very shortly after the attack. They found ge'd made biological weapons and had an Islamic terrorist book ... of course they knew! They lied to "keep the peace".

cakeorwine · 20/01/2025 19:02

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 18:59

Where is your evidence that he does? You have none, you are associating people with mental health difficulties with this horrendous crime simply because you can’t cope with the fact that some people commit horrendous crimes. There is no more reason to think he had mental health difficulties than a terrorist does.

I am not saying he did or he didn't.

You said that he didn't have mental health difficulties.
How do you know that he didn't?

soupfiend · 20/01/2025 19:02

WeCantGoOverIt · 20/01/2025 18:36

It was not terror related. For it to be terror related there has to be motive. Why is that hard to understand?

Why then did he plead guilty to two terror charges too?

Because he was guilty of them!!

Which you would be too if you were accessing prohibited terror material.

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