That picture of the Southport killer

[User09678]

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?

It's not for you to judge the worth of his life. Only he can do that.

I think his actions are revolting but I don’t think his life is pointless.

Yes I would think the judge would want to keep him behind bars on a whole life order.

12 years is the starting point only. The judge I think will ramp it up massively.

This is a difficult one. Many know from experience of these systems and their limitations resource wise and more, that this guy could have any miriad of MH conditions that were never assessed, screened for or picked up.

Because the court said nothing to declare, that means nothing.

There is a pattern though. Mentally ill men attack and kill females at music and dance events. Can we stop it please

Oh the irony. You are another who thinks the ‘defining criteria of being a Muslim being having downloaded a freely available document off the internet’ (as @RafaistheKingofClay put it.)

And yet you have the temerity to tell those of us opposing racism to be careful not to cancel people. You are trying to cancel an entire group of people.

There are so many children slipping through the system. There is no cohesion between services and in my experience, the people with the concerns are powerless to do anything. As an educator, I have seen so many children I’ve raised concerns about just moved on from establishments, never to be seen again. I shouted as loudly as I could in my capacity at the time and very little could be done about it.
The fact that Prevent deemed him ‘potentially concerning’ but nothing to do with them says all you need to know. It feels like different services are just passing the buck, constantly.

My daughter goes to school with a boy very similar to this in ideology. He’s obsessed with Hitler, the IRA, violence and mass murder. He’s brought weapons to school and has threatened staff and pupils. We’ve requested that the school refer him to prevent multiple times due to his racist, homophobic and anti-semetic beliefs ( he’s a holocaust denier). If he does something like this, I know that his mental heath will be highlighted and zero riots will take place because he’s white British.
There needs to be a regional mental health team set up to try to rehabilitate these boys before this happens in some form of secure unit. It is clear that these boys are headed in one direction only without intensive residential treatment. They deserve a chance before there’s no way back, but instead people just wash their hands and act surprised. This is something that’s been happening since at least the 1980’s in my personal experience, and likely well before.

@PeppyGreenFinch He can't get a whole life order due to his age. You can only be given that from the age of 21 and above.

It's a school photo that was everywhere(and still is of you google him and select images) when the first reporting happened last year.

I wouldn't call it "angelic" though, just normal/average.

You're going to extremes yourself here.

I believe based on what I have read, posts on here from particularly reasoned posters that this guy is not an islamic extremist. I believe based on what I know so far that he has grasped onto a multitude of ideologies across faith or otherwise ( I don't know the correct term for the Nazi ideology). I believe this is not about his religion ( if there is one), or his ethnicity ( I separate this from religion anyway).

Perfectly measured and perfectly able to say incorrect assumptions made. Perfectly able to debate and listen to others with compelling evidence or points to the contrary.

I wonder how many people are like myself and not just goodies or baddies.

I reckon 25 years

I can't see the person who I replied to because they deleted their response. We had prevent training at school it specifically talked about the far right and to watch out for children being radicalised. I'll have to check the exact wording I think pp was right fastest growing. There was a big thing on it and Islamic terrorism very much glossed over which is why I found it quite ridiculous. I'll get back to you when I find it.

I was just reading that it’s unusual but not impossible. The judge would need to make a good case for it.

Define "Islamophobia", please.

@Notmyfirstusername obviously I don't know the specifics ref this kid. It sounds like he's another case who for reasons beyond ' extremist sympathiser ' is grasping onto extreme ideologies. I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know what the PREVENT team or whatever they're called now are supposed to do here? I can't recall the exact projects under PREVENT when I worked on this over 10 years ago. I recall one strand was raising awareness/education. ( I always felt this was too simplistic and patronising. And really naive). Another would be high level monitoring via counter extremist group. I this case, I have to ask what anyone could really do.

Is he just a bit misinformed and needs a little bit of guidance or is there something way beyond that driving this. Who really has the time and resource to get to the bottom of it. I know it's scary but I think that's reality.

They didn't have up to date photos at the time. It was said he had changed a great deal in recent times, hadn't even spoken to his parents for goodness knows how long. He didn't look like a child in the school uniform pictures, more like sixteen or so.

Gosh yes tin he recent photo he looks completely mad, or someone's idea of a deranged person. Poor tortured soul. I wonder what medication he is on since his incarceration, meds alter how people look. I saw a lot of that when I was at work.

We are no better off for seeing the photo which is horrific, nightmare inducing; it doesn't bring those poor children back to life or help their grieving families - neither does it help the killer boy's family who must be going through who knows what. The press are so manipulative.

Hatred of Muslims simply for being Muslims.

That isn't true now, I don't think.

I may be wrong, but I am fairly sure that the bill that was passed in 2022 allows for whole life orders in exceptional circumstances for under 21s. But only if the crime was committed when they were over 18. So would not apply in this case.

Eta link to factsheet:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-sentence-lengths-for-serious-offenders-factsheet

Yes, that’s what I read too. The judge needs to show mitigating factors for increasing the sentence.

The truth will be a lot more prosaic. When you have someone in the news, the media want a photo. This will either be released by the family / police, or you have to find one. School and wedding photographers retain the copyright for their images. So often media outlets will track down who took their school / wedding pics, and negotiate with them.

Use your brains guys.

The press were clearly clambering to get a photo of him and that was all they could get.

Who exactly you think 'released' the image in an official capacity that wasn't his parents is beyond me. He was a minor in the eyes of the law at the time of the murders - the Police couldn't release his picture and absolutely would not have released an image that 'favoured' him if they could.

The suggestion is so offensive to the Police who had to attend that scene and break such horrific news to the families of the deceased.

I'm getting more and more sick of the goady rhetoric on here, of late.

He is not a muslim.

As pp have pointed out he is not the first non-muslim murderer to have down loaded that manual.

The Liverpool Echo, a newspaper which is about as far removed from the right wing press as you could find, describe how he smirked and said ‘are they all for me? when he arrived at court.