A senior officer has delivered a stark warning that numerous youngsters are consuming the same type of disturbing material that influenced the Southport attacker, expressing fear that Britain could witness another similar atrocity.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Winstanley from Lancashire police made the alarming assessment whilst providing testimony to the inquiry examining the horrific stabbings that claimed three young lives at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29th July last year.
Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, murdered nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, six-year-old Bebe King, and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe during the savage knife attack.
Other children showing similar warning signs
ACC Winstanley told the inquiry panel: “Sadly, there are other children out there with similar interests and behaviours that [the Southport attacker] displayed.”
The senior officer highlighted what he characterised as a “real challenge in managing children’s mental health,” noting that youth mental health services are “working extremely hard, doing their best, but are overburdened.
He described a concerning cohort of young people who possess “what appears to be completely unregulated access to the internet, where at the click of a button, they can see the most horrific and horrendous incidents.”
Weapons purchased online with frightening ease
ACC Winstanley expressed particular alarm about how effortlessly youngsters can acquire dangerous weapons through internet purchases.
They can go online and purchase things, which, frankly, I see no legitimate purpose for, crossbows and machetes,” the officer stated, adding that such incidents feature almost daily in police briefings.
“Barely a day goes by where we look at our morning summaries and there hasn’t been an incident the day before where somebody has either been attacked or threatened with a machete,” he explained.
The officer emphasised these weapons serve no legitimate civilian function: “There is no other purpose for these weapons, other than to intimidate, enforce violence or deliver violence on people.”
Systemic societal change needed
ACC Winstanley delivered a sobering prediction about future threats, warning: “It is far too easy for our young people, particularly those who are suffering with their mental health, to be influenced and to see this material, and to then get access to weapons that allow them to carry out, on occasion, atrocities, the like of which I hope we never see again, but I fear that we will.
Whilst acknowledging Lancashire Constabulary bore significant responsibility and needed improvement, he stressed: “These are things that as a society, there needs to be systemic change around if we’re going to make a difference.”
Critical missed opportunity revealed
The inquiry uncovered deeply troubling evidence about a police encounter with Rudakubana two years before his deadly rampage.
On 17th March 2022, his mother reported him missing from their home, informing officers he was severely autistic and had taken a kitchen knife. Police located him after a bus driver contacted them because Rudakubana had boarded without paying.
Officers discovered he was indeed carrying a small kitchen knife. However, rather than arresting him, they treated Rudakubana as a vulnerable individual, returning him home and initiating referrals for social services and mental health support through a “protecting vulnerable persons” procedure.
“I want to stab someone” confession ignored
Perhaps most chillingly, a probationary officer documented that during the police car journey returning Rudakubana home, the teenager stated “I want to stab someone.”
Despite this explicit threat, the officer lacked access to intelligence indicating Rudakubana had been viewing material about school massacres, information that would have dramatically altered how the situation was handled.
Nicholas Moss KC, representing the inquiry, characterised the incident as representing “a very serious missed opportunity to identify and address the risks posed by [the Southport attacker].”
He pointed out: “The fact that officers on the ground didn’t have that full picture, but it would have led to an arrest and search if they had had that full picture, must mean that this was a very serious missed opportunity.”
Custody viewed as last resort for children
ACC Winstanley acknowledged this assessment but explained the prevailing policing philosophy at that time considered custody as “being a place of last resort for children,” influencing how officers responded to concerning behaviour from juveniles.
The inquiry continues examining what opportunities existed to prevent the tragedy and what systemic failures allowed a clearly troubled teenager with violent ideation to fall through multiple safety nets before committing mass murder.
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