But the decision not to classify the Southport attack as terrorism has sparked controversy, with Nigel Farage today accusing Sir Keir Starmer and the police of “a gigantic cover-up”.
The Prime Minister admitted the country will “rightly demand answers” over how the state “failed” to protect the children who were murdered, adding the Government will leave “no stone unturned in that pursuit”.
From left to right, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Bebe King, six, who were stabbed to death by Axel Rudakubana (Photo: Merseyside Police/AFP)He also pleaded guilty to a terrorism offence of possession of an al-Qaeda manual, and to production of ricin, a biological toxin.
Amid disinformation swirling about the identity of the attacker and claims he was an asylum seeker who had arrived in a small boat, the force took the unusual step of confirming the then-suspect had been born in the UK.
The claims about the killer’s background fuelled days of rioting, which has so far led to nearly 450 people being sentenced.
Ricin, al-Qaeda charges revealed
They added that ricin wasn’t found at the dance studio where Rudakubana launched his stabbing attack.
Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to killing three young girls in a stabbing spree last year that sparked the UK’s most violent riots in a decade (Photo: Merseyside Police / AFP)She said: “The matter for which Axel Rudakubana has been charged with under the Terrorism Act does not require motive to be established.
It’s not clear when police started investigating the Al-Qaeda manual or the substance found at Rudakubana’s home, later confirmed by Porton Down scientists to be ricin.
Speaking to The i Paper, Jonathan Hall, KC, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, said of the Rudakubana case: “The question is not whether he has been convicted of a terrorism offence, he obviously has.
“The approach of the CPS appears to have been that there’s not enough evidence to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the reason he carried out the murder and the attempted murders was to pursue an ideological cause.
Rudakubana also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of eight other children and to the attempted murder of Leanne Lucas and Jonathan Hayes (Photo: James Speakman/PA Wire)
Prosecutors were likely to outline to the judge at Thursday’s sentencing what they think they can prove Rudakubana’s motivation was when carrying out the attack, he added.
“Obviously, prosecution didn’t feel they could prove in a criminal court that he [Rudakubana] was doing it because of some jihadi reason,” he added.
Killer referred to Prevent three times
According to the newspaper, one referral is understood to have related to concerns over his potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre.
In a statement after he pleaded guilty, the CPS said Rudakubana had a “sustained interest in death and violence”
But he added: “There is a question about how Prevent deals with people who, if the decision is, they’re not really on the way to becoming a terrorist, but they’re just obsessed by violence, who then deals with them?”
The CPS, Merseyside and counter-terrorism police were contacted for comment.
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