Has Prevent failed to stop terror attacks for fear of being accused of racism like cops in Rochdale grooming scandal?
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THE TRUTH surrounding last July’s murder of three schoolgirls at a dance class in Southport has turned out to be even more disturbing than the rumours which swirled around social media at the time. Not only was the killer, Axel Rudakubana, a terrorist at least partly inspired by al-Qaeda, but he had been referred to the Government’s Prevent programme no fewer than three times.
![[Mugshot of Axel Rudakubana.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/axel-rudakubana-appears-undated-mugshot-965264285_f991bf.jpg?strip=all&w=720)
Each time, fears that he could turn into a killer were dismissed – and he was free to go on to make online purchases of weapons and the deadly poison ricin. An academic paper widely misused as a training manual for terrorists was found in his bedroom.
![[Keir Starmer speaking at a Downing Street press conference.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-london-england-teenager-axel-965492087.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
At the time, it might be remembered, police declined to treat the killings as an act of terrorism. People who repeated rumours online – some of which, such as the claim the perpetrator was an asylum-seeker, were untrue – were arrested. Yet when riots broke out in response to accusations that the truth was being withheld from the public, few in authority had any hesitation in asserting that they were the work of the far-Right.
![[Bomb disposal robot at Manchester Arena after explosion.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2017-evening-least-19-people-326001680.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Another catastrophic failure of the Government’s anti-extremism strategy was laid aside while the public was invited to believe that the real threat to society comes from white supremacy. To give him credit, Keir Starmer appreciates that this will no longer do. The state’s failings, he admitted today while announcing an inquiry into the killings, “leap off the page”.
![[Photo of Abdalraouf Abdallah, refusing to cooperate with the Manchester Arena Inquiry.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2020-abdalraouf-abdallah-26-refusing-607187649.jpg?strip=all&w=485)
