A police officer who visited the family of the Southport killer after he had attacked a pupil at school with a hockey stick noted that he believed the parents were “still in denial over how serious this actually is”.
The officer, PC Paul Harrison, from the Lancashire community safeguarding team, emailed his inspector after visiting Axel Rudakubana’s home, telling him: “Nobody told me I would be dealing with terrorists!!!!!!!”
The Southport Inquiry, sitting in Liverpool, had earlier heard how the youngster took a knife into school in October 2019, leading to him being expelled, before returning to attack a child with a hockey stick two months later, while carrying a knife in his backpack.
Rudakubana’s school referred the case to the Prevent de-radicalisation programme run by counter-terrorism police but it was not adopted.
Alice Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Stancombe, seven, were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July last year by Rudakubana, by then aged 17.
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In the email, from December 2019, five years before the attack, PC Harrison told his senior officer he had visited the home after Rudakubana was arrested “to discuss safeguarding” and “spoke to mum about supervising Axel at all times and ring the police if he disappears”.
“Parents are alarmingly playing the situation and his behaviour down,” he added.
Rudakubana had rung Childline on 7 October 2019 saying he was being bullied and wanted to kill the bully.
He admitted carrying a knife to school, leading to his permanent exclusion from Range High School, in Formby.
‘Unhealthy obsession with guns’
He was sent to Acorns School, a pupil referral unit, where the school alerted police, telling them that Rudakubana had been “accessing mass school shootings online at the school, he has an unhealthy obsession with guns, he draws disturbing pictures and talks about beheadings”.
However, on the morning of 11 December 2019, Rudakubana returned to Range High School armed with a sharpened hockey stick and a kitchen knife in a rucksack, intending to find a child he considered had been bullying him and to take revenge.
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PC Harrison noted he had named individuals that he wanted to kill but “thankfully the individuals weren’t at the school but he ended up assaulting another pupil”.
He notified Merseyside Police, which was dealing with the school attack, telling the force that the Prevent team were conducting background checks around his “alarming and worrying behaviour”, but he added that “the father is in denial and is under the opinion that the school are exaggerating things”.
‘They are still in denial over how serious this is’
After the attack, the officer wrote to Lancashire social services that he had spoken to Rudakubana’s mother “who assured me that Axel would be supervised all the time by her or dad”.
“l informed them that if he managed to give them the slip she should phone the police. I got the impression they are still in denial over how serious this actually is,” he wrote.
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In a multi-agency meeting on 17 December, led by social services, the minutes recorded a visit the previous day and their belief that Rudakubana had “traits of autism spectrum disorder to a high level”.
They added: “The family engaged with the visit, however it appeared that Axel was quite a force in the household, appearing to dominate discussion and at times shout down his parents who did not appear keen to challenge his opinions.
“Parents did say that they do struggle at times with boundaries. Overall, it appears that Axel’s parents potentially don’t understand his additional needs and how to best parent him.”
The inquiry continues.
