What is Prevent? Anti-terror unit which failed to stop Southport murders under increased scrutiny
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Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana was referred to the anti-terror programme three times before he carried out the attack. The UK’s central programme to stop domestic terrorism, Prevent, has been criticised for failing to intercept Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana before his fatal attack which left three young girls dead in July.
![[Home secretary Yvette Cooper looks at tributes near the scene of the deadly attack in Hart Street, Southport (James Speakman/PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/20/07/d974c80eee77713ad6f5d3e45514db06Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM3NDQ0NDM2-2.77000158.jpg)
The 18-year-old had previously been referred to Prevent three times before he carried out the atrocity, the first as long ago as 2019. Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has now ordered a public inquiry into the attack, saying that the anti-terror programme and other state institutions “failed” the families of the victims.
His comments come after Rudakubana, 18, made a surprise guilty plea in court on Monday as his trial was due to begin. He admitted to the murders of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and trying to kill ten others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer.
The teenager’s referrals to the Prevent programme were made between December 2019 and April 2021, when he was aged 13 and 14, home secretary Yvette Cooper revealed the day after his trial. Rudakubana had also had contact with the police, the courts, the Youth Justice system, social services and mental health services.
“Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed,” Ms Cooper said. The minister that a ‘Learning Review’ into Rudakubana’s three referrals to Prevent begun in the Summer but remained confidential to protect the integrity of the trial.
