Starmer refuses to rule out sackings after Prevent review into Southport killer Rudakubana case

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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the Government will not "allow anyone to hide" from the Prevent review findings. Credit: PA Images

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out whether there will be any sackings following the review into how Southport killer Axel Rudakubana's case was managed by the Government's anti-terror scheme.

Starmer insisted that the review will be taken seriously and appropriate decisions will be made.

Speaking at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory, near Preston, he said: "We cannot allow anyone to hide from the findings that must follow from that (Prevent review)."

"We must follow the evidence on this. But I am not going to allow any state body to be immune from the consequences of the failure," he added.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory near Preston. Credit: PA Images

The Government revealed findings of the review into Prevent on Wednesday, 5 February, concluding that Axel Rudakubana's case was closed "prematurely".

Rudakubana was referred three times to the Prevent programme, aged 13 and 14, and also had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services before the stabbings in Southport.

He was jailed for a minimum of 52 years for murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice da Silva Aguiar and attempting to kill 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.

The Government has accepted all 14 recommendations for improvements in the Prevent learning review, and has begun an internal review of the Prevent thresholds, which is expected to be completed by April.

Three girls, Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, were killed by Rudakubana. Credit: PA Images

Starmer insisted that changes will come before the end of the public inquiry into the Southport attack.

He said: "There will be an inquiry that we have set up, but I also want to assure the victims and the families but also the wider public that we won't wait until the end of the inquiry to start making the necessary changes.

"We do need that inquiry because there are lots of questions that need to be answered, but I want to start making the changes now that are needed.

"Some of the changes on Prevent have already been made. We need to go further and faster.

He added: "We are not going to wait and hang about here".

Three separate referrals were made to Prevent about Rudakubana’s behaviour in the years before the attack. Credit: Merseyside Police

  • ITV Granada Reports' Ann O'Connor asked Sir Keir Starmer about the Prevent findings at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory near event near Preston.

The Prime Minister cited problems with the Prevent framework currently in place, which may have led to missed opportunities to stop killers without a known ideology like Rudakubana.

"There were individual failings and I am not going to flinch from taking the necessary action in relation to the failings. We can't hide away from this.

"I do think there is a problem with the framework and this sense of having to have an ideology in order to be dealt with in a particular way.

"That I think is too narrow and that is the bit that we have got to grip as well here. And that is what we will change before the inquiry comes to its conclusions."

He also added that every decision taken on this issue will be taken with the families and victims of the Southport stabbings in his "mind's eye".

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