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

[IwantToRetire]

The words "failure", "failing" and "failed" appear more than 200 times in Monday's Southport Report

Its findings leave almost no agency, organisation or individual involved in Axel Rudakubana’s life unscathed.

The police, council, mental health services, Prevent programme – none of them took ownership of the risks that he posed.

Only The Acorn School, which the attacker attended after being expelled from Range High School, is noted as having repeatedly intervened.

But the Chair of the inquiry, Sir Adrian Fulford, also clearly believes in parental responsibility.

The attacker's father, in particular, is described as "obstructive" and "manipulative" in relation to the authorities.

It is rare to see a killer’s parents singled-out for not doing more to prevent their child’s crimes.

Together, the Southport attack was a failure of both parenting and policy – nobody, says the Chair, agreed who was responsible for the troubled teenager.

There was a "merry-go-round of referrals, assessments, case-closures and 'hand-offs'", he says.

There is even a specific moment when Sir Adrian believes the murders could have been prevented, after the attacker was caught with a knife on a bus in 2022.

But no arrest or search of his home took place, leaving the poison in his bedroom and the warped search history on his computer undetected.

The report’s recommendations include setting up an agency with overall responsibility for monitoring risk, to avoid repeat failings.
But there are searching questions too about access to online materials for children, the availability of weapons and the complexities of the attacker’s autism (the Chair is keen not to stigmatise others with condition).

Ultimately, only the attacker can account for his crimes. But for the families of the victims and survivors, today’s report contains the painful conclusion that he could – and should – have been stopped.

https://www.itv.com/news/2026-04-13/southport-report-finds-failures-by-authorities-and-at-home

The Southport Inquiry: Phase 1 report
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-southport-inquiry-phase-1-report

I think it’s desperately simplistic to blame the parents in THIS particular case. They were trauma victims themselves and clearly had inadequate support - and services are so stretched that they were all just left to go quiet. It must have been terrifying for them to watch their child spiral downwards.

I partly used this news reports as quite a few have headlines that make out it is all the fault of the parents.

And its not for me to tell them what they should or shouldn't have done. Because as was discussed on another thread what do you or can you do if you are frightend of your own child. And / or the authorities dont listen to you.

And if the parents were failing why didn't the support services step in let alone Prevent (or who ever it was).

Those in power just dont seem to understand that more and more violence is lone men / boys, who probably dont have an actual beliefs, but just looking for anything that justifies (to them) acts of violence.

It seems to me that if they had reported him, the agencies involved would just have held more meetings, made more referrals.

I have two adopted children, adults now, both doing OK, but I know plenty of adopters who have begged and begged for help for seriously disturbed children and simply been sent on yet another parenting course. There are practically no services for children who might commit serious crimes - you have to actually commit the crime before the authorities pay attention.

"No Risk" Assessment: Six days before the July 2024 attack, he was discharged from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) with a report that concluded: “Poses risk to others – None”.

Missed Red Flags: Although he was referred to the Prevent counter-terrorism program, that, and other assessments, failed to recognise his increasing risk, with some staff wrongly attributing his behavior to autism rather than potential violence.

Ignored Incidents: Authorities did not adequately investigate or "join the dots" regarding earlier incidents, such as his possession of a knife on a bus in 2022,

The bit I saw today sounded like the Chair of the enquiry was blaming the parents in the context of all the weapons, ordered online, which were delivered to the house and they did nothing about and didn’t report them to anyone. Were there other bits as well?

Just wanted to post that I am not in anyway forgetting the horrible deaths of three young girls.

And those who survived and are still lving with the horror of that day, and some with ongoing physical and mental health problems.

And the heartbreaking stories of how these young girls helped each other in the absence of any adults.

There has been a huge push in recent years to keep kids out of the Court system, by way of non-court disposals.

On one hand this is a good idea because, back in the day, kids would end up meeting others of similar persuasion at the Court itself.

On the other hand it has masked a serious amount of risk within some young people and has left agencies with little proper recourse. But, of course, crime figures look better - it can easily be manipulated to look like youth crime has reduced. I'm afraid I don't share that view.

To think that there isn't a proportion of young people who absolutely take advantage (deliberately or not) of the current system is seriously naive.

I appreciate that you are talking about young people who have yet to commit crimes, but in my experience, even if they do there is little recourse. Your experience doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

His parents knew at least a week before that he intended to attack his former school. His room was full of weapons and poison he had ordered online, where did he get the money for these? From his parents that is where, Quite frankly the pair of them should be serving jail sentences too along with all the hand wringing idiots that made a 1001 excuses for this absolute maniac. Three little girls murdered in the most horrific way, eight other little girls and two adults injured and many other children frightened and still scared now all because no adult would do what needed to be done. Instead of locking this crazy evil young adult away they cited Autism as the reason he was a bad bastard, like autism excuses everything, like it is a get out of jail free card. Alice, Bebe and Elsie dead because 2 parents kept their mouths shut that week and adults made excuses.

It’s very similar to the Valdo Calocane case. He had a lengthy history of violence, but opportunities to prevent escalation were repeatedly missed. I wonder if the authorities are simply too frightened of these men to do anything about them.

It feels to me that there has been a huge shift from public protection to individual consideration.

I think the shift has swung far too far and that actually, we are now doing a massive disservice to individuals who do pose high risk of harm and to the public who deserve better.

Oh and yes, I do believe they are frightened of these men. Absolutely.

In America those parents would now be in jail.

I agree.

Ask any secondary school teacher. They will tell you that excuses are made all over the place for violent teens who go on to become violent adults.

Maybe or maybe there just isn't any way to help them, some people can't be fixed. If we had a secure facility where they could be held, and a therapy could be developed to help them and if they wanted to be helped because therapy only stands a chance of working if the person engages with it, maybe. So many if's, we definitely need to find some solution because we can't live in a world where young girls at a dance class could be randomly slaughtered.

Whatever measures we can come up with, it will need to start with the parents, I don't care how much 'trauma' they were suffering from (I don't know the details about any of that) they were the first line of defence and they failed.

I completely agree. Who gives their child money to buy things that are made to harm others!!! His parents failed here - as well as various agencies.

It's all very well for Starmer to make noises about urgent action and lessons learned - there are no resources, the ones left are about to be axed or gatekept right away from the majority of kids with needs by the Labour govt, and the safeguarding phrases are the same old same old since the days of poor little Victoria Climbe.

Some of the most depressing bits:

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.

We see these same failings on a minor level frequently and have done for years on this forum, just in this field alone, with no improvement even with journalists frequently pointing it out. And again, as a most depressing side note, I can't help noticing yet again, the one being benefitted by the careful, sensitive, supportive establishment approach was male, and the ones who suffered, horrifically, all female.

The authorities simply can't/won't do much if no crime has been committed - maybe that will change now this is being looked at, but like another poster has said, they don't even do much to young people who HAVE committed a crime. It is going to be interesting to see what they come up with for cases where they are simply worried about future behaviour.

The big problem with one part of this at least is that stricly speaking he probably didnt have a MH diagnosed or diagnosible condition, so CAMHS wont see a role for themselves

Autism was focused on, which is fine, but what seems to have happened is that his behaviour was not seen as dangerous ergo because he was autistic, something I see on threads here all the time as if someone who is ND cannot be dangerous, just misunderstood or showing a melt down.

We dont know the level of violence the parents themselves experienced, and they may well have failed as adults and parents.

And as has come up on threads about those who have children with autism, they dont always receive the support they should and are subjected to violence.

But that is why we have or are meant to have support services and local councils etc., who have the power to intervene.

We hear of social services deciding they have the right to take children and even babies away from families.

Why didn't they intervene? Because he was a young adult?

If as some are suggesting the parents were "facilitating" their son, why didn't they intervene. The father had on occassion but was no mathc for him.

The school reported their concerns.

And as is now an endless topic of discussion in the media and even tv series, too many young men and boys only seem to respect or listen to online sources where violent men encourage each other.

But surely a crime had been committed if an under 18 was ordering weapons for delivery to his house? But no-one alerted the police

He had committed crimes, he took a knife to school, he battered a child with a hockey stick, he was on terrorist sites online and he was found with a knife on a bus and told police he wanted to kill someone. How many more crimes did the psycho have to commit before adults locked him in a cell?

It’s an interesting report.

it’s clear that this is not within the remit of prevent as they have a very specific remit with respect to terrorism and AR did not fit that remit.

CAMHS in many areas will not even take referrals for autistic children and teens as autism is not a MH issue.

SS and the safeguarding framework is not really capable of dealing with a situation where the child is the cause of danger.

i used to teach and there were quite a few teens who brought knives etc to school. As far as I’m aware there’s no service to work with them.

I read the inquiry transcripts, it's much worse than what's reported in the media...
Reg. The cash. AR was given money by the father, AR was getting rewarded 50 pounds every time he was showering for instance, because lately he was neglecting his personal hygiene which is also a sign of disconnecting from reality and deep discomfort. It was a text book case.

It is appalling that 3 innocent young fun-loving girls were killed and my thoughts are with their families today as they deal with the report, knowing their daughters should still be with them.

My overall sense is that too many of our services are designed to fail. There aren’t enough suitable facilities for violent young men - and it is usually men - so there is pressure on staff to reduce the demand for placements by downgrading risk assessments. There is also a significant number of staff who believe they can/have/will fix these individuals, despite the objective evidence suggesting otherwise.

For public protection, there needs to be enough secure accommodation to contain dangerous psychopaths and acceptance that not everyone can remain free.

Sadly nothing will change.

The rights of individuals are now such that they will continue to walk free until they commit abysmal atrocities.

Public safety is a secondary consideration.

I'm not sure how it happened, or why. Is it a human rights thing? If so, it seems to be placing more humans in direct danger!

I'm not sure the authorities would deem anyone to be simply 'bad' any more.

They are either psychiatrically unwell, or able to be redeemed in some way.

I think they are trying to be PC. But I wish they would just do the right thing and get these people off the streets without a tragedy having to happen first 💔