A public inquiry into the murders of three girls at a Southport dance class will identify changes that urgently need to be made to protect the most vulnerable from other “horrors”, the chairman has said.
Chairman Sir Adrian Fulford opened the inquiry into what he described as “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history” at Liverpool Town Hall on Tuesday.
Sir Adrian, a former vice-president of the Court of Appeal, said “ordinary language fails to reflect the enormity” of the knife attack on the Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29 last year, when Axel Rudakubana murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
The 18-year-old, who was given a life sentence in January with a minimum term of 52 years, also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.
In his opening statement, Sir Adrian said: “As a society we are not helpless when confronted with individuals who are known to be contemplating acts of such depravity and although no solution will be foolproof, we can identify all of the robust steps which should be taken to protect ourselves, and particularly the most vulnerable, from horrors of this kind.
“And this must be undertaken at speed, to provide answers for the victims and their families and to identify all of the changes that urgently need to be made.”Some of the families of those injured in the attack were seated in the hearing room behind a curtain, shielded from public view, for the statement, which took about an hour for the chairman to deliver.
After naming Rudakubana once in his opening remarks, Sir Adrian said his full name would not be used again throughout the inquiry “for the benefit of the victims and their families, for whom this is an issue of significant and wholly understandable sensitivity”.
He said: “There are no words adequately to describe what occurred and I am not going to try (and then fail) to find them.
“Instead, I simply observe that his crimes impose the heaviest of burdens on our society to investigate speedily but comprehensively how it was possible for AR to have caused such devastation; to analyse the decisions that were or were not taken by multiple individuals and organisations given his deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour; to identify without fear or favour all of the relevant failings; and to make comprehensive, sensible and achievable recommendations to ensure we have the best chance of intervening with and preventing others who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way.”
Sir Adrian said the inquiry would be split into two phases and the first would analyse Rudakubana’s history and his dealings with relevant agencies, along with any missed opportunities to prevent what happened.
This would include the criminal justice system, his education, his engagement with social and health care services and his relationship with his family.
A second phase, taking place next year, would consider the wider phenomenon of children and young people who are being drawn into extreme violence and what should be done to reverse the “troubling trend”, the chairman said.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the public inquiry in January to help understand what went wrong and prevent any repetition of similar incidents.
Sir Adrian said he had no doubt the inquiry’s two phases were a “truly critical undertaking” to “understand what went wrong” and ensure there was no repetition.
A minute’s silence was held during the chairman’s opening statement in memory of those who died and to “acknowledge the ordeal of the survivors, along with the families of the girls who were present”.
Sir Adrian said the inquiry was expected to act as a “real engine for change”.
He added: “I am determined it will not turn into an exercise of papering over the cracks.”
The chairman listed some of the “undisputed but troubling facts” which he anticipated would be heard, including two incidents where Rudakubana was found with a knife, once at a school which he had been excluded from, and three referrals to the Government’s counter-terror programme Prevent.
Sir Adrian also referenced material Rudakubana accessed online, including Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual.
He said the killer had obtained a 20cm chef’s knife for the attack and other items found in his home included two types of machete, a sledgehammer and substances used to make ricin.
Sir Adrian said: “These factors, if correct and when taken together, tend to suggest that far from being an unforeseeable catastrophic event, the perpetrator posed a very serious and significant risk of violent harm, with a particular and known predilection for knife crime.
“Furthermore, his ability, unhindered, to access gravely violent material on the internet, to order knives online at a young age, and then to leave home unsupervised to commit the present attack, speaks to a wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed.”
The inquiry was adjourned until Wednesday, when impact evidence from four families whose children were injured in the attack will be heard.
