Declaring Southport attack as terrorism would have helped, detective says
Share:
DCI Jason Pye says declaration would have given police more time to investigate Axel Rudakubana killings. The detective who led the investigation into the Southport atrocity said he would have been “happy” for it to be declared as terrorism as it would have given officers more time to investigate the killings.
DCI Jason Pye said the question of whether Axel Rudakubana’s attack was terrorism had been “assessed on an almost daily basis”. Speaking after the 18-year-old was jailed for 52 years on Thursday, Pye said his investigators would have had longer to question the attacker and compile evidence if it had been declared a terror attack.
He said: “We’ve told the families this when it’s like … are we hiding it? Why would you not want to call it a terrorist attack. All day long I’d have been happy for someone to say it’s a terrorist attack … It was assessed on an almost daily basis: is this terrorism?”.
The mass stabbing, which was one of the worst attacks on children in recent UK history, was not declared as terror-related because detectives have found no evidence it was motivated by terrorist ideology. Keir Starmer has ordered a review of terrorism laws to address “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms” amid plans to potentially broaden the definition of what constitutes a terror attack.
Pye described Rudakubana as one of “the world’s most evil” killers after the sentencing at Liverpool crown court. He said most of the 26 young girls who attended the sold-out Taylor Swift event on 29 July “didn’t even know there’s any evil in the world.
