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

You can't really protect yourselves. There's little you can do as very often no one helps you, you are pretty much on your own, even restraining a child is viewed as causing emotional harm. Adult safeguarding thresholds are never met. The police are very kind but can't do much except raise yet more safeguarding concerns and calling them out is a last resort. You end up picking your battles and over accomodating to avoid ending up in A&E. Child has a lot of control. It's all very well talking about boundaries but no one wants to end up in a rapidly escalating violent situation that could put everyone at risk. It's basic safeguarding.

There just doesn't seem to be anything set up to deal with child to parent violence. Also the recognition that parents need to be seen as equal partners - it's conversations about you, what you must be doing wrong etc which leads to a huge lack of trust - when you are already going through so much and often living in extreme situations. I suppose because systems aren't set up for that. I am hopeful that one thing that might come out of this is more awareness of this issue. Services are far too stretched and not really equipped to deal with this so it's understandable. People just give up trying to get help that just doesn't come.

It is far, far too simplistic as you say and the trauma on the family is immense. And the impact of that is underestimated and not fully understood. Hopefully this will lead to better training and frameworks. It's quite common but most people aren't aware of it. I may well be over extrapolating but I am sure that this will resonate with many. Well, I know it will.

I think the recognition that parents also need support and protection from violence would be a good starting point but I fear that we are a long way from that. Although every situation is different and there are many different reasons for child to parent/carer violence it's very much a national issue.

I think this tv interview just echos a lot of what has been posted here.

But thought I would post the link even though it suggests everybody still needs to "learn"

https://news.sky.com/video/professionals-had-no-insight-into-what-was-going-on-in-world-of-southport-attacker-13531505

There's little you can do as very often no one helps you, you are pretty much on your own, even restraining a child is viewed as causing emotional harm.

@Thekidsarefightingagain

If parents restrain their child to protect themselves, do social services threaten to remove the child?
I have been reading all your posts and it must have been incredibly hard for you and your family to be unable to get any meaningful help.

The parent would possibly be arrested and made to leave the house. It can be utterly catastrophic so most parents learn not to try any physical interventions.

The police tell you to restrain as best as you can but even if there's two of you it's really hard to do as no one can underestimate the superhuman strength of a dysregulated child so you still get hurt. Social care do view it negatively because of the impact on the child but I don't think that that's a genuine thing as of course you've got to do it. In my case I restrained if my child could harm themselves but took it if I was the one getting harmed and that can go on for hours. It's really strange as you just learn to dissociate and you completely normalise it, partly because it's from your child. That's why reading the transcript of the parents' evidence is different for me than for other people.

We did eventually get help as our situation was very extreme and kept on escalating although the process of that was also traumatic. And it's amazing how quickly people can jump into action. Without that I don't know what would've happened. Social care did work hard as they had to get people working together which is no mean feat believe me! Everyone is just so busy and overworked so I can see this from a lot of different perspectives.

The interview posted above is spot on but to me it just feels that everyone has to firefight so much as there aren't enough social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, police etc.

You do have to be really careful with restraint! It's one of those things that no one is allowed to show you how to do properly. It's a really difficult situation.

I wouldn't normally talk about my experiences but I feel that it's important not to vilify the parents or the professionals in this when the reality is much more complicated. I'm sure that if I hadn't experienced this and how systems work for very many years I would share the general national opinion though.

I am going to be blunt here because to me this is as clear as anything.

He should have been sectioned.

Sectioned when he went to school and broke that kids arm for thinking that he was being bullied - that no one agreed with. From memory I think they didn’t even know who he was.

Sectioned when found on a bus saying he wanted to kill people with a knife.

Sectioned when he was at home, wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t showering and was purchasing weapons online and saying everyone was out to get him.

No one sectioned him!

Section 2 is for assessment. There’s no way this unhinged individual would get through 30 days of monitoring without it raising serious red flags. At which point he might have been helped.

I don't think he met the threshold so got batted down the criminal justice route? It's a case of refer somewhere, threshold not met, refer somewhere else etc which is why parents end up managing all the risk with no support. Even happens within the same organisation!

I don't know why he wasn't getting tutoring at home via his EHCP if he wasn't attending any provision. Or why there were no PAs given the fact his brother's disability too but that might be somewhere in the inquiry report.

Nonsense did he not meet the threshold.

I have had psychosis, I got sectioned for running round the town shouting the gov are trying to kill me 😭

Embarassing. But I wasn’t a threat to myself or anyone else just clearly gone mental.

A kid who’s going round beating people up and carrying knives saying he wants to kill people has clearly gone mental AND is a risk to others.

Hes 100% delusional. I still don’t know how he was tried criminally tbh.

I am convinced he wears that mask at trial to hide his smiling underneath. When I was psychotic I used to smile in my sleep. It was so disconcerting.

He’s a very sick individual and it is so obvious to me he has persecution delusions. I don’t know how professionals can’t see it.

@Theeyeballsinthesky There cannot be excuses like that! There are people doing these jobs who are tasked with keeping us safe! Just saying not enough staff is not good enough. All these services must prioritise. You run the service based on the worst cases. This is why the police prioritise investigating murder over theft. There are similar priorities in SS and health. What happens is that no one speaks to each other and acts. Prevent said he didn’t meet their criteria. This child should not have been living at home. Various routes exist to have deprived him of his liberty. None were taken, despite a hugely worrying series of events. It’s not a case of numbers of staff or money, it’s a case of not working together to help their communities and passing the buck. The report is clear about this.

it’s a case of not working together to help their communities and passing the buck. The report is clear about this.

Yes and also if the individuals such as Samantha Steed who silenced the head teacher’s concerns on the grounds she was being racist, keep their jobs, then things won’t improve.

Psychosis is different as it's a very clear cut psychiatric emergency so they would admit. Tbh I suspect that some of the time it's due to not enough CAMHS beds but could be really wrong about this. Read the book on this one! The kids just get batted back to families.

My questions at this stage are:

1. What caused AR's sudden decline? If he had had support for his ASD and if that had been diagnosed earlier and given support eg at school would he have declined?

2. Were there carers for his brother?

3. Was home tuition provided?

4. Child to mother violence is sadly pretty much seen as an acceptable risk. I suspect that because it was against his father it was viewed as even more acceptable. We've discussed the difficulties of restraint and how this is generally frowned upon, the strength of a dysregulated child

5. Why were they not given support to implement boundaries? Why is the reason that they didn't want to escalate a volatile situation and not get hurt and not impact on the stress to brother not viewed as understandable? Was there any safety planning?

6. Why was the impact of trauma not taken into account with dealings with services? Parents had been through a lot of trauma plus coping with the impact of elder son's disability plus coping with sudden decline of AR plus dealing with services which can be traumatic by itself. And a part time job as someone mentioned earlier. It doesn't appear as if their views were potentially as taken into account as they could have been but that could be my over extrapolating.

7. It looks like they were both working night shifts - I think I've got that right. Was this to be around in the day for AR? Was the sheer exhaustion of working nights taken into account in decision making?

The video that OP posted earlier is by far the most balanced reporting that I've seen.

Sorry can't work out edit button. That should say that dealing with services is a part time job in itself. I couldn't imagine working nights (if they were doing that at the time) AND dealing with services with a huge amount of trauma and the sheer exhaustion of everything. While walking on eggshells and trying not to distress the older brother who by all accounts was very academic and doing A levels and who needed a lot of support too.

It’s better to separate out autism from the extreme violence shown in that case.

@Theeyeballsinthesky The issue is not that the parents had to do everything. They are not the professional services here that failed. They are though one part of the jigsaw puzzle of acute failure. Shabana Mahmood listed the professional agencies. He was not attending his PRU. Home education was the least of the problems here. It’s not acting when crimes are committed or doing what’s needed to protect society. I’ve attached the list.

I don’t think it is different. I see very clearly the same thing.

Not all psychosis’s are dramatic and have you hearing voices and seeing spaceships. This whole thing started with him believing he was being bullied when it wasn’t true. Then becoming obsessed and fixated with researching and going down rabbit holes. Stopped sleeping, bathing and eating.

Thats basically exactly what happened to me. And that was diagnosed as a first episode psychosis.

His perception of bullying was possibly different due to his autism & fixations & going down rabbit holes are common. It also depends on the profile of ASC. Trust me even if your child does meet the criteria admission to hospital isn't as likely as people think it is. It's just brutal, it really is. The system doesn't seem to be set up for complex cases and is overwhelmed as it is.

My hunch is of course that early intervention and early SEND support could possibly have prevented this but that's a whole different story in itself. And just a hunch of course.

Yes I said upthread, or another thread, who knows now, you cannot separate out his ASD from these behaviours, no matter how much people want to believe 'this wasnt his autism'

It was, his view of the world, himself, his relationship abilities, his victim status, his perceiption of bullying and the 'solution' to that is born out of an extreme reaction, rigidity, lack of empathy, lack of ownership and many other things. He may, may have had some MH issues as well but hasnt been diagnosed with that as far as I remember

There is no way he would have been sectioned, I know people want to believe this was the missing gap, it wasnt, it just would not have happened on the basis of that.

I know exactly what you're saying though! That was my thought too but I'm no psychiatrist.

Thanks for this, that's interesting and really resonates. I'm actually learning a lot just from this discussion! It's not really explained to you IRL

My query around home ed is that others would've been in the house so if it wasn't provided it was a missed opportunity. I don't know if it was though.

Aah yes the endless cycle of MASH referrals.

Even if direct tuition is agreed (its normally online), the tutors are tendered for (in most LAs, so dont have to accept the job) and will usually meet the young person at a library or other public place. I dont have any kids, who are receiving direct tutoring where it happens in placement or at home.
And quite frankly, we have had tutors refuse to work directly with young people with this sort of profile and kids are left waiting months and months for education because no one will work with them. Apart from police and social care no one 'has' to work with a young person, they can say they're not engaging or the risks are too high and say they cant work with them.

It’s not really about what people ‘want to believe’ when saying autism is being over extrapolated in the posts.

It’s the opposite, no one can make those claims. They don’t know enough.

I am 100% convinced. And no I am not a psychiatrist either. But as someone who has literally had it I think I have insight to recognise it that most people don’t.

I also don’t think psychiatrists really know as much about psychosis as they think they do. Unless you have have had it then it’s just so conceptual. And the people they are talking to have alterior motives at play too. To keep their liberty, not or get medication, etc etc. When I was well I remember saying to my psychiatrist I have no idea how you manage this because how can you decipher who’s telling the truth and when.

But they can recognise signs of FEP; particularly the negative symptoms and his actions. And he ticked all those boxes imo.

I wish there was a national campaign for FEP. Like the stroke awareness campaigns. I often see posts on here from people about family members and even in second hand text account it’s clearly psychosis. Often many pages long and not a single person has said ‘that’s psychosis’.

People really have very little awareness.

Aaah again that makes sense - it must depend on the LA then whether it can be provided at home or not. So again that's interesting. And yes there's a very long wait.

Not many people want to work with this profile! Oh yes to that.

I love having everyone's perspective, it's just so interesting!