Why? Why us, why here, why that day of all days? But above all, why do our girls, our little spirited girls, happily make bracelets for each other in the summer vacation workshop?
Questions that have plagued Southport families since last July, when then-17-year-old Axel Rodakobana brutally murdered three of his children and eight others (as well as two adults). also tried to kill him, prosecutors said this week. “Tragic” attack. The parents receive no response from the dock, where the boy – now the man – who is carrying his daughters sits quietly, but for some strange outburst against the judge. But in a sense this question is unanswerable. No motive, no twisted ideology or mental illness can ever explain the stabbing of a six-year-old. Arguing whether it was terrorism or not, the judge said he sentenced Rudakubana to 52 years in prison. He would kill them all if he could.
While some will fall back on biblical concepts of evil to explain the seemingly inexplicable – one tabloid writer claimed to “see the devil” in Rudakobana’s eyes – we do not live in an age of demons and witches. We live in a world where humans can do unspeakable things. Where society’s job is to find and mend the cracks through which such horrors slip. Governments must ask how, not why, so that we can ensure that this never happens again.
The case has been rife with claims of a cover-up, so prosecutors talked not only to the court, but to a country to outline the case if he unexpectedly pleaded not guilty. It was the story of an isolated teenage loner, a victim of violence, on the radar of many authorities for years but seemingly never aware of the danger he was. Diagnosed as autistic and suffering from anxiety, he was expelled from school in 2019 for carrying a knife to class and appeared to want revenge on children he claimed He had bullied her. (He returned to attack a child with a hockey stick and prosecutors suspect him of planning a mass attack at his old school, physically restrained by his father from getting into a taxi. ) fled, he spent hours online watching videos of atrocities. His computer contained images of torture and beheadings, but also cartoons mocking Islam and other religions.
Was he somehow traumatized by his parents’ wartime experience, which he never knew growing up in Britain? Or was it the place where his repulsive fascination found an outlet? He can’t or won’t say: Again, the “why” escapes us. But the “how” is grimly obvious. He liaised between social services, mental health services, the police and anti-radicalisation program Prevent, to which he was referred at least three times in three years – including after school shootings and the London Bridge terror attack. for research – yet each time it was judged lower. Action Limits As Keir Starmer put it, the inability to prevent him from imitating the violence in real life “jumps off the page”. The law may need to be revised to cover attacks lacking a clear doctrine – “why?” What distinguishes terrorism from other violence—which sounds technical, but likely determines whether or not sabotage programs involve people like Radakubana.
Although Starmer suggested the case exemplified a new form of terrorism, it was hardly new to anyone working in the field, raising the question of whether the former home secretary had previously Could also do that. For years, officials have dealt with what Americans call “salad bar extremism,” or self-radicalizing loners selected seemingly at random from the Internet’s all-you-can-eat buffet of conspiracy theories and grievances. An attacker could be radicalized in an “insel” chat room, be inspired by a school shooter’s manifesto, and learn his way from a jihadist manual like the one Rodakobana downloaded – but without becoming a jihadist. .
Ken McCallum, head of MI5, warned last October “More volatile would be terrorists whose ideologies they claim to follow”, leading officials to be unsure whether the underlying cause was ideology or mental health. after an attack. In this gap of understanding, as we saw in Southport, tensions erupted.
Although the previous government published a review of deterrence by William Shawcross in 2023, the then Home Secretary, Sylla Braverman, appeared to be primarily concerned with whether many far-right suspects and enough Islamists Not being investigated, he attacked “cultural cowardice”. Shawcross, meanwhile, concludes that Prevent has become a dumping ground for vulnerable people who don’t fit the definition of terrorism but, in retrospect, look like Rudakobana. What Stormer calls “lonely and misfits”, falling down online rabbit holes. Shawcross felt that deterrence must return to its core function of “dealing with the ideological causes of terrorism”. A key question is whether, in narrowing the scope of deterrence, one adequately considered where pushbacks would go beyond it. Last month, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced a review of prevent thresholds and further monitoring of defaulters, which suggests it has drawn its conclusions.
What brings so many young people (usually men) to what Starmer calls a “parallel life,” dangerously alienated from others? Cooper’s review will examine the role of mental health issues and neurodivergence, a sensitive topic with concerns about stigmatizing affected, but lonely, socially isolated people seeking solace and connection online. Reflects growing concerns within prevention about
The forthcoming public inquiry should also examine whether Rodkobana slipped under the radar during the lockdown – as many children did, although most likely to be affected by violence. – And if not, how could he be familiar with the services of so many children. little advantage. Parents who have experienced these services will be less surprised than those who have not. What all have in common is increasing workloads as resources shrink, and children are endlessly shuffled from one caseload to another. While ministers are right to re-ban extremist material online and the sale of knives, these measures alone will not solve the problem.
My heart goes out to the bereaved and survivors in Southport, who will carry the scars on and off for the rest of their lives. We may never have the answers to all their questions. But understanding how Rodkobana came to walk that long dark road of tragedy, however painful, is our best chance to prevent it from happening again.
