Deaths of Reading terror attack victims ‘probably avoidable’

The deaths of the Reading terror attack victims at the hands of Khairi Saadallah were “probably avoidable” and contributed to by the failings of multiple agencies including Counter Terror Police, a coroner has said.

James Furlong, Dr David Wails and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett were murdered by former child soldier and asylum seeker Saadallah on June 20 2020 in Forbury Gardens, Reading.

Three other people - Stephen Young, Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan - were also injured before Saadallah threw away the 8in (20cm) knife and ran off, being chased by an off-duty police officer.

Since arriving in Britain in 2012, Saadallah was convicted of various offences including theft and assault.

Judge Coroner Sir Adrian Fulford said the deaths “probably would have been avoidable” if the mental health service had given “greater priority to stabilising KS and securing access to long-term psychological therapy”.

He added that if his “extremist risk had been better analysed”, Saadallah would probably then have been recalled to custody the day before the attacks, meaning they would never have happened.

‘Failings of multiple agencies’

Judge Coroner Fulford said the deaths of the three men were “contributed to by the failings of multiple agencies”.

Speaking to The Telegraph following the six-week-long inquest, Furlong’s father, Gary, accused government agencies of ignoring multiple warnings that his son’s killer was likely to carry out a “lone wolf” terror attack.

Mr Furlong said the authorities had been focused on Saadallah’s mental health issues rather than accepting he was a terror threat.

He said: “He should never have been allowed into the country. He was committing crimes from his first year of being here.”

Mr Furlong said that by the fifth week of proceedings he was “totally demoralised”.

He said: “The biggest concern I had was listening to some of the people who are operating within these agencies and seeing they are just not up to the job.

“Definitely Prevent and Counter Terror Police (CTP) were the worst.

“They just lacked any dedication to the role they were doing. They weren’t dynamic in any way. When you think of counter terror police you think they are real go-getters, but they weren’t.

“I think it was basically laziness, they didn’t want to deal with the issues.”

‘Police ignored issues around radicalisation’

Multi-agency public protection arrangements, known as MAPPA, were set up by the Government to ensure the successful management of violent offenders.

Mr Furlong said: “What counter terror police were doing was taking probation reports and mental health reports from those meetings and basically ignoring all the issues around his radicalisation and his talk of terrorism and were focusing on the mental health issues to justify them dropping the case.”

A probation officer responsible for Saadallah told the inquest she was unknowingly “managing an unconvicted murderer”.

Laura Rixon cried during her evidence after being told that Saadallah had killed people and thrown explosives into government premises while fighting in his home country of Libya before coming to the UK.

She told the inquest she had no knowledge of Saadallah ever “fighting” in Libya and managed him on the belief – from the information she had – that he had mixed ideologies, was not a national security threat and that his risk of extremism was low.

She said she was told by Thames Valley Counter Terrorism Police shortly after taking the case that Saadallah displayed a “lack of ideology” and was not in their view a national security threat.

‘State agencies have let us down’

Andrew Wails, brother of Dr Wails said UK state agencies had “catastrophically failed” in their duty to protect the public from terrorist Saadallah.

“These state agencies have let us down. The failure to prevent this attack has destroyed our lives,” he said outside the Old Bailey.

“The state catastrophically failed in its duty to identify the risks he posed, and protect us, the public, from those risks. A cowardly terrorist killed my brother David, his friends James and Joe, and tried to kill three others.

“He attacked them from behind as they sat in Forbury Gardens with no chance whatsoever to defend themselves.

“As a family we have many questions and concerns about what various state agencies knew or ought to have known about this terrorist before he carried out his attack, and whether they could have done something to prevent it.

“This coward had been a member of a proscribed terrorist group and murdered people, he confessed to throwing grenades at people in public places in Libya, yet he was let into the UK and allowed to remain here.”

Saadallah referred to Prevent four times

The inquest at the Old Bailey heard Saadallah was “in limbo” for a number of years as his asylum application in the UK was refused, and he was also ineligible for deportation to Libya because of the country’s civil war.

Saadallah arrived lawfully in the UK in April 2012 on a visitor’s visa, which expired in September of the same year.

The judge said there had been a failure at the Home Office system.

While Saadallah was being held in HMP Bullingdon he expressed his intentions to “stab someone” but his comment did not form part of an intelligence report about him until after the terror attack, the judge said.

Saadallah was referred to Prevent four times, but the referrals were closed on four occasions when he was sent to prison.

The failure by Prevent to identify and act on the risk that Saadallah posed is a “matter that has caused me some real concern”, the judge coroner added.

Speaking outside the Old Bailey, Mr Wails said: “The state could have prevented David, James and Joe’s murders.”

He went on: “The failings of the state exposed by this inquest sicken and disgust me. Those who failed in their duties are responsible for David, James and Joe’s deaths.

“I will never forgive and never forget the pain and suffering inflicted on David and my family, which we have to endure for the rest of our lives.”

Saadallah was declared a “subject of interest” by MI5 in 2019, but months later he became a “closed subject of interest”.

The judge coroner said MI5 had “no credible intelligence to suggest KS was planning an attack on the UK” and there was “no realistic possibility of MI5 preventing the attack on Forbury Gardens”.

But he added information provided to MI5 by Counter Terrorism Policing South East was “inadequate”.

In January 2021, Saadallah was handed a whole-life sentence at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to three murders and three attempted murders.

Judge Coroner Fulford recorded a conclusion of unlawful killing for the deaths.