British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport by a teenager who had been referred to the government’s anti-extremism program three times, must lead to “fundamental change” in how the British state protects its citizens.
His comments followed the announcement on Monday of a public inquiry into the incident, which sparked riots across the country.
Starmer, who became prime minister only three weeks before the attacks, said, “The tragedy of the Southport killings must be a line in the sand for Britain.”
Rudakubana was the British-born son of a couple who had moved to the UK from Rwanda after the infamous 1994 genocide, but in the hours after the murders, information spread online which claimed the suspect was an illegal immigrant who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.
Three months after the murders it emerged Rudakubana had also been charged with terrorist offenses.
This week it emerged Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times.
Farage ‘Right All Along’
The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, said on Monday he had been “right all along” when he claimed in the summer information had been withheld from the public.But Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said certain information had been withheld, “in line with the normal rules of the British justice system.”
On Monday evening Cooper announced a public inquiry and said the country needed “independent answers” on why the police and other agencies who had contact with Rudakubana did not prevent his attacks.
The terrorism offense relates to a PDF file entitled “Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual.”
Rudakubana was referred three times to Prevent when he was 13 and 14, and was in contact with several state agencies, but they apparently failed to spot the threat he posed.On Tuesday, in a televised speech, Starmer said there were “tough questions” to answer about how the authorities failed to protect the people of Southport.
“We must ... ask and answer difficult questions, questions that should be far-reaching, unburdened by cultural or institutional sensitivities and driven only by the pursuit of justice,” he added.
Starmer said the case showed “terrorism has changed” and the law might need to be altered to deal with “a new threat … acts of extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms.”
“It is a new threat, it’s not what we would have usually thought of as terrorism when definitions were drawn up when guidelines were put in place, when the framework was put in place and we have to recognize that here today,” he said.
‘Risk’ of Trial Collapsing
Critics, including Farage, have accused Starmer’s government of withholding information about Rudakubana, but he said there had been no conspiracy of silence, just a desire to see justice done.He said, “The only losers if the details had been disclosed would have been the victims and the families because it ran the risk the trial would have collapsed.”
Starmer is a former lawyer and director of public prosecutions, who led the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales between 2008 and 2013.
A week before the girls were killed, Rudakubana tried to take a taxi to his former school, where he had been bullied. His father prevented him, apparently worried there might be an altercation.
Rudakubana will be sentenced on Thursday and faces a mandatory life sentence. The circumstances of his crime would have usually meant he would have got a whole life tariff, meaning he would never be released.
But because of his age at the time of the offense, he cannot be given a whole life term, which means he could potentially be released in 40 or 50 years.
