Rudakubana charged over ricin and terrorist document three months after murders

The charges against Axel Rudakubana over possession of the deadly poison ricin and an al Qaida training document were not made public for three months after he murdered three girls at a holiday dance class.

Police knew within four days of the knife attack in Southport, Merseyside, on July 29 that a substance found in the teenager’s bedroom was ricin, but the charge against him for having the substance was not publicly confirmed until October 29.

It was then revealed that he was also in possession of an al Qaida training document.

The delay in bringing the charges, despite questions from media outlets including the PA news agency over the searches at his home, led to accusations of a cover-up from public figures including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

The criticism followed widespread rioting during which right-wing commentators on social media claimed that the public was not being told the whole truth about the attacks, including false claims that Rudakubana was an asylum seeker.

Senior officers said the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were not classed as acts of terrorism and that an ideology is critical in deciding whether a crime counts as terrorism.

It has since emerged Rudakubana had been referred to the Government anti-extremism scheme Prevent three times before the murders due to concerns about his obsession with violence, but that he was found not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology.

He was in contact with a “range of different state agencies” throughout his teenage years and first referred to Prevent when he was just 13 years old, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, after he reportedly viewed material relating to US school shootings.

As well as being referred three times to the Prevent programme between December 2019 and April aged 13 and 14, he also had contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, Ms Cooper said, adding: “Yet between them, those agencies failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed.”

In December 2024, the senior national co-ordinator of UK counter-terrorism policing, Vicki Evans, said investigators are increasingly seeing suspects who have accessed a range of violent material but that a specific ideology which may have motivated an attack can be extremely difficult to pin down.

She said officers are seeing suspects with search histories like “a pick and mix of horror”.

This could include material linked to school shootings, mass violence, extreme pornography, pro-incel material, and misogynistic and racist content.

Sometimes the harrowing material tips over into terrorism, and other times not.

Rudakubana’s possession of an al Qaida manual was a crime by default regardless of his own ideology, as was possession of ricin.

Matt Jukes, head of UK counter-terrorism policing, hit out at Mr Farage’s comments at a Westminster conference in November.

He said: “It is unhelpful when people, who I suspect fully well know what the constraints are on reporting during ongoing legal proceedings, point to limited disclosures or limits on what can be said as evidence of cover-up and conspiracy.”

In the wake of the guilty pleas, Mr Farage asked in a post on X: “Will we ever find out the whole truth?”

Later, he told PA that Reform UK will ask Ms Cooper to appear in Parliament and account for why Rudakubana’s terror links were not revealed sooner.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for a “complete account of who in Government knew what and when” in the case.

Terror watchdog Jonathan Hall said questions over why the incident was not treated as a terrorist attack and whether it could have been prevented were “completely legitimate”.

Speaking to LBC, he urged people to wait to hear the details of the case are set out at the sentencing on Thursday and cautioned against misinformation online.

Ms Cooper said it was “essential” there were answers about the “terrible” Southport attack and how this “extremely violent teenager” came to be “so dangerous” as she announced a public inquiry “that can get to the truth about what happened and what needs to change”.

But she stressed in a statement that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had been “clear that important information about the perpetrator’s past could not be made public before today to avoid jeopardising the legal proceedings or prejudicing the possible jury trial, in line with the normal rules of the British justice systems”, adding: “Nothing has been more important than securing justice for the families.”

The CPS defended its decision to wait to disclose more details until Thursday when it presents its “full case” to court as he is sentenced, amid questions over why more information cannot be disclosed now he has pleaded guilty to his crimes.

Referring to the “growing number of teenagers” referred to Prevent, Ms Cooper said: “We need to face up to why this has been happening and what needs to change.”

The Home Office carried out an “urgent” review over the summer of the three referrals and why they were closed, Ms Cooper said as she vowed to publish more details this week alongside “reforms to the Prevent programme”.

Police say motivation needs to be established for attacks to be classed as terrorism.

Counter-terror police were involved in the Southport investigation because forces can ask them to help with probes into major incidents from the start so they have access to more resources and tactics to allow them to progress the investigation swiftly.

Establishing the circumstances of the incident is often complicated and will depend on the nature of the incident and what the investigation uncovers, which is why it can take some time for an attack to be declared as terrorism, especially if there is no immediately clear motivation or ideology for the incident.

Perpetrators holding mixed ideologies, which can sometimes be complicated to interpret, can be one of the reasons why it may take time to determine.

Not all violent incidents, even some atrocities involving multiple victims, are declared terror attacks.

Cases of extreme violence in which hatred is a factor more often than not do not meet the legal definition of terrorism.