Age of those with extreme violence fascination 'striking'

The young age of people referred to a counter-terrorism scheme due to their fascination with extreme violence is "striking", the public inquiry into the Southport knife attacks has heard.

Hearings in phase two of the Southport Inquiry are considering topics surrounding "violence-fixated individuals".

Chairman Sir Adrian Fulford intends to make recommendations to try to prevent another attack like the one carried at the Merseyside dance class on 29 July 2024.

Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed while 23 other children suffered physical or psychological injury.

In the first phase of the inquiry, Sir Adrian found the attack by Axel Rudakubana (referred to as AR) "could and should have been prevented" had public bodies taken steps to stop him, and had his parents "done what they morally ought to have done".

The second part of the inquiry is being held at the International Disputes Resolution Centre in London, and is looking at the broader issues on how to deal with individuals who pose a risk of extreme violence.

Richard Taylor, from the joint counter-terror police and NHS group the Clinical Consultancy Service, told the hearing that of the 1,534 cases referred to the service between April 2024 and January this year, 11% involved individuals who had a fascination with extremist violence and mass casualty attacks.

He said almost 80% in that category were under 18 , while 30% were under 15.

"Which is of course a very striking finding - how young the cohort is," Taylor said.

He said the age profile of those referred to the scheme was getting "increasingly younger".

Those with an extreme right-wing ideology made up 34% of referrals, said Taylor, while 16% of cases were related to Islamist extremism.

Social psychologist Prof Laura Smith said the "new reality of online youth extremism" was that people may join extreme interest communities on the internet, related to topics such as self-harm, eating disorders or gore, and find themselves becoming involved in "nihilistic" extreme violence communities.

She said: "Many of these groups offer status within the group in return for evidence of harm."

Smith said once someone started to look at extreme content, algorithms on social networks would continue to show it to them.

She told the inquiry parental controls should be something people had to opt out of, rather than opt into.

She said: "It's a Wild West out there and we need to understand people's browsing, search history, app usage, gaming and social media usage as standard."

As he started the hearings, Sir Adrian addressed the victims of the Southport attack.

He said: "Although we are now moving on from the detail of events of 29 July 2024, I want to say directly to the victims and their families that what happened to them on that day is the sole reason for us being here as we seek to achieve the greatest possible understanding of why AR and others have been inspired or driven to such extreme levels of violence, and to identify for government the measures which appear to be necessary to reduce, to the extent we are able, the risk of any repetition."

Families of the victims have said they hope the second phase will bring "meaningful" change.

Nicola Ryan-Donnelly of Fletchers Solicitors, representing families of children who survived the attack, said: "The only way that we can get proper change that is going to be meaningful is if we look across the country and we look at where things are at nationally.

"They want that exercise to be as detailed as possible, so the chair can make really strong changes that are actually going to work."

Ryan-Donnelly said it was important that internet companies co-operated with the inquiry were they called to do so.

She said: "We need all of those companies to come to the table and share with the inquiry, completely transparently.

"Otherwise, the chair is not going to be able to really, properly consider what the situation is and make the recommendations that are needed to make sure that children are protected in the future."

Families of those who survived the attack are continuing to battle for support as their children come to terms with what happened, Ryan-Donnelly said.

"During phase one, there was undoubtedly a lot of focus on what the attacker did," she added.

"The families need the world to move away from that. They need the world to focus on them and their recovery and what comes next because they're still living this every single day.

"Even the girls that are managing the best are not OK, and are still without really vital support that they need."

Nicola Brook, from Broudie Jackson Canter, which represents adult survivors Leanne Lucas, Heidi Liddle and Jonathan Hayes, said: "This is still an extremely difficult process for my clients to go through as they work every day to rebuild their lives.

"Despite the distress this process causes for all those impacted, my clients remain committed to assisting the inquiry and hope that, through the lens of AR's actions, gaps in state programmes will become undeniably clear and a failsafe system can be implemented to stop the growing threat posed by violent fixated individuals."

On Wednesday, speakers will include Lord Anderson KC, who carried out a review of counter-terror programme Prevent, and the government's terror law watchdog Jonathan Hall KC.

Hearings in phase two of the inquiry are expected to run until December.

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