There was "sufficient risk" posed by Southport killer Axel Rudakubana to keep his cases within the Government's counter-terrorism Prevent programme active and these were "closed prematurely", Home Office minister Dan Jarvis has said.
Rudakubana was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years – one of the highest minimum terms on record – for murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 last year.
He also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
The Government has accepted all 14 recommendations for improvements in a review of Prevent, Mr Jarvis said.
Three separate referrals were made to Prevent about Rudakubana's behaviour in the years before the attack, as well as six separate calls to police.
The teenager attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, used school computers to look up the London Bridge terror outrage and carried a knife on a bus and into class before he carried out the Southport murders.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had announced a public inquiry will be held to look at any "missed opportunities" to identify Rudakubana's murderous intent and she ordered a "thorough review" of the Prevent referrals.
The security minister told the House of Commons that Rudakubana was interested in the Manchester Arena bombing in 2016 that killed 22 people, and had talked to others about stabbing people.
The convicted child killer was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 when he was aged 13 and April 2021 when he was 14. Those referrals were made by his schools.
The first referral reported concerns about him carrying a knife and searching for school shootings on the internet, while the second referral was focused on his online activity relating to Libya and Gaddafi.
His third referral was for searching for London bombings, the IRA and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Mr Jarvis said: “On each of these occasions, the decision at the time was that the perpetrator should not progress to the channel multi-agency process. But the Prevent learning review found that there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent.
"It found that the referral was closed prematurely, and there was sufficient concern to keep the case active while further information was collected."
But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp called for the inquiry to consider Rudakubana’s past mental health interventions.
Mr Philp asked whether ministers would "confirm that it will be a statutory inquiry", saying it was “important so it has powers to compel witnesses to attend, take evidence under oath.”
Turning to the Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane, Mr Philp added: "Both Rudakubana and Calocane could potentially have been sectioned and detained under the Mental Health Act, and if that had happened perhaps these murders could have been avoided."
In his response, Mr Jarvis said: "Let me confirm to him in response to his question that it will begin on a non-statutory footing. That is deliberate in order to get it up and moving as quickly as possible but it will then be moved onto a statutory footing, so I can give him that assurance."
