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

Boundaries, punishment and consequences are very much not dirty words when it comes to working with children with challenging behaviours. Quite the opposite in fact!

Their interventions were at a pretty basic level. Everyone who worked with him just withdrew, said he didn't meet their criteria...he was left to his parents to sort him out and they couldn't do it.

My "credentials" are knowing loads of adopters (i am an adopter) who are living with young men who are beyond parental control and all services can offer is parenting courses. The high input interventions just aren't there - they are mostly for yp at risk of self harm. Threaten your parents, for example, nothing will happen.

I know this, you might know this, its my job, but society at large has moved away from this and so has policy and strategies. Now Im talking in blanket terms and there are nuances to this which I cant be bothered to type out but generally speaking this is whats happened.

No. I have girls. And I am saying that it needs high level professional input, more than most parents can provide. You think you know what would work though and I just wondered if you had tried your suggestions out on a really challenging son.

AR was not adopted, he got his belief system in the home, a home in which the father was an officer in the Rwandan rebel group (so already had an ideology of being against the state), a man who had no problem with his son amassing a collection of weapons in the living room.

His parents raised him, and they raised a murderer.

Have only just caught up with this thread.

Lots of interesting posts.

And not wanting to say it is the most important aspect, but this is a case where clearly access to the internet confirmed, affirmed, encouraged, or whatever word that attitudes of this young male.

Nothing to suggest that he wouldn't have been physically violent, but the internet and incel culture fed him a narrataive about violence and hate.

Just hope that as a result of this case, as well as many others, that there is not just discussion but serious action to block web sites that promote male violence and those that imply that violence against women and girls is okay.

Just seems crazy that because something is based in the virtual world that countries, communities, whatever cant say we dont want your poison in our homes.

I suppose this will just be another thing that somehow the UK wont work out how to do it.

@likelysuspect That’s where the parents needed to take action. Of course they could have searched the house. The big problem is that every professional backed off. Passed the buck. I do think they because he wasn’t visible he didn’t get attention but parents can do far more than these did.

So your credentials are really anecdotal observations of adopted children who were being brought up by people who already knew that their children had likely suffered ACEs - ie not the same as AR.
You’re omitting the overwhelming evidence that his father in particular covered up and excused his behaviour time after time, lied to professionals or just outright refused to engage.

His father also sought help, fought for educational provision and engaged with therapies.

If professionals were that concerned about the parents (who had other children who seem to have been fine) they would have removed AR.

And also, as was said in the report, that at some point that father lost faith in the "professionals". And did not trust them to have care of his son when there was a suggestion that he should be put into some sort of facility.

All we have heard is that nobody acted.

But what we dont know is how when services did interact whether they acted or were able to act in a cooperative way.

I am not posting this to say the father was right, but making statements about what people should or shouldn't have done is quite frankly pointless.

What a professional may have said thinking they are being supportive or offering the only alternative, is not the same as the person or family being told that is the only option when they dont have faith in those professionals.

The other brother is physically unable to commit such level of violence because he requires a motorised wheelchair (that was funded by five local Rotary clubs).

Well I come from a culture where disrespectful and violent behaviour like this would not be tolerated and would be dealt with. I’ll give you one example from my own family: my teenage niece was being bullied at school and it turned out that her (male) teenage cousin was taking part. What do you reckon happened when his dad found out? Let’s just say it never happened again. No wringing of hands, no trying to understand his POV, no asking him about his needs. Because none of that is important when another person’s safety is at risk.

His brother was attacked by AR from a young age and terrified of his brother. AR posed a clear risk to the family and more should have been done to protect everyone. What was the safety plan? Where was the respite?

Who could have searched the house? The parents? They knew what was in their house

Or do you mean the police? The police very rarely search young peoples homes if they're found with a knife, its not usual, they need a warrant for a start.

My experience with mental health services is if you don't tick their boxes exactly they couldn't give a shit. They don't follow up when they are supposed to and I'd be as bold as to say more people fall between the cracks than don't.

I sort of agree but the more I learn the more sympathetic I am to MH services (cant believe Im saying that) because the public think everything is a 'MH concern' or 'MH condition', the public think this is fixable if only xyz is put in place, if only there was 'intervention' or 'support'.

What Ive learned and continue to learn in my career is that this is magical thinking quite a lot of the time. You cant fix this.

Having a service that understands that autistic people are more likely to have mental health concerns and thinking about accessibility would be a start. Many autistic people struggle with speaking on the phone. So having telephone only initial assessments is kinda restricting matters from the word go...

This isn't just about magical thinking. It's about the fucking basics.

So again why do you then let your son amass a holdall of knives, arrows and poison if he is that dangerous?

I'm talking about 15, 16 year old boys living in family homes. What happened to get to that point is irrelevant - I'm talking about the services available to these families and it barely exists. And yes that's my anecdotal experience but you show me where families get good support and I will listen to you and hopefully the gov can roll that out.

Yeah Im not sure swearing at me is necessary, I havent been rude or obscene to anyone. I dont disagree that there are limited to nil services for people with autism, I didnt refer to that, but it is magical thinking to think that change is always possible, particularly for someone with his presentation and that was what Im referring to.

If you read the report, it’s actually very fair and recognises the difficult situation the parents were in. But there was still a failure of parenting. Given he only left the house when he was planning to harm others, and they had prevented him leaving the week
before, and on this day they knew he’d likely left with a knife, and did nothing to
stop him.

You have minimised and you have made out there's no problem.

I'm sorry but that's not ok. If you have had to deal with this first hand you might not be so polite about the complete shit show and might give the snotty lectures a rest. It doesn't help and it just rubs salt in the wounds. It self righteous.

They just need a functional service. There's not even that.

Ive made out there is no problem!! What on earth are you talking about

I do this job, on the ground, every day, trying to manage young people and young adults like this, there are no services, there is no magic fix, there is no easy category. Society is not set up for this and doesnt want to set up for it, the public dont want to pay for it and dont want to face the reality of it. No one would like the answers to this.

Oh I think what happened to get to that point absolutely is relevant. The state cannot constantly pick up the pieces for crap parenting and it’s unbelievable that so many parents seem to want to pass the buck. This is not about mental health or vulnerabilities or additional needs. It’s about tackling violent, male behaviour.

Because that is the problem: violent men.

I don’t see scores of women with mental health issues and/or additional needs stabbing children or ramming into crowds with their cars or shooting up schools or planting bombs outside places of worship. Only and always men.

This has nothing to do with mental health or additional needs and everything to do with male violence. And parents should be tackling that at ages 3, 4, 5, 10 or whatever - not making demands of the state for their 15/20 years of failures.

"Society is not set up for this and doesnt want to set up for it, the public dont want to pay for it and dont want to face the reality of it. No one would like the answers to this."

This is it in a nutshell. Not helped by the press who are more interested in what Katie Price is up to than the absolute shitshow caused by under funded services.