'Disgrace' that Axel Rudakubana was 'easily able to order knife on Amazon', says Home Secretary
Yvette Cooper said it was a "total disgrace" that Axel Rudakubana was "easily able to order a knife on Amazon". The Home Secretary spoke in the House of Commons today (January 21) a day after Rudakubana, 18, admitted murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last summer.
Following his guilty plea yesterday, The ECHO today revealed the full list of items found in Rudakubana's house - a three bedroom newbuild property in Banks, Lancashire. The search for items began around an hour after Rudakubana was arrested but was halted the following day when a Tupperware tub containing an unknown substance was found under his bed.
After examination it was confirmed on August 2, 2024, to be ricin. The deadly toxin which can kill a person if inhaled or injected has no antidote - but it is understood the ricin was never used during the mass stabbing or at any other time.
Officers searching the property also found a machete, a Cerbera knife - identical to the one used to carry out the stabbing - and arrows. An empty bag from Premier Seeds Direct, said to contain 150 seeds was also found, along with a receipt that showed the castor beans - from which the ricin was extracted - were ordered on January 19 2022 under the name “Al Rud”.
In a cardboard box under the floorboards was a pair of goggles, two white funnels, a conical flask with brown residue in it, as well as a pestle and mortar containing pulp. All the items had been purchased from Amazon in 2022.
In the Commons today, Ms Cooper said Rudakubana admitted to having carried a knife more than 10 times. She told MPs: "Yet the action against him was far too weak. And despite the fact he’d been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon.
"That’s a total disgrace and it must change. So, we will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring."
Huge questions are being asked of the role the authorities and security services played after it was revealed that Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent programme - which aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists - on three separate occasions before he committed the murders.
Ms Cooper announced yesterday that a public inquiry will investigate how Rudakubana "came to be so dangerous" and why the Prevent scheme "failed to identify the terrible risk" he posed to others. Today, Ms Cooper told the Commons that independent oversight is needed for the Prevent programme, with Lord David Anderson KC appointed interim commissioner of it.
She said Lord Anderson will start work "immediately", telling MPs: "His first task will be to conduct a thorough review of the Prevent history in this case to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed, particularly when there is mixed and unclear ideology."
Ms Cooper said the Home Office will conduct an "end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds", explaining: "Including on Islamist extremism, where referrals have previously been too low. We’re looking at cases where mental ill health or neurodivergence is a factor, and developing new arrangements with other agencies which may not meet the threshold for Channel counter-extremism support, but where violent behaviour urgently must be addressed."
Ms Cooper also said the growing problem of young people "obsessed by violence" should be a serious concern in light of the Southport attack. Labour MP Chris Murray had said: "In her statement, and in the Prime Minister’s speech this morning, they have painted a terrifying picture of how terrorism is changing in this country and the threat that we face is evolving. Especially with the proliferation of extremely violent online content, which is having an effect on mixed ideologies, and from ideologies across the spectrum.
"Clearly part of the response to this is going to be the response of the intelligence services. So can the Home Secretary tell us about how the intelligence services will be responding to this evolving threat?"
Responding, Ms Cooper said: "What we seem to have is cases where there is extreme violence, or obsession grows around extreme violence, and then you have young people who then may cast around to maybe consuming different kinds of terrorist material, or extremist material, but at its heart may be an obsession with violence as well.
"Actually, the scale of the growing obsession with violence should be a serious concern to us because you do think ‘what are we allowing to happen to our kids and to our teenagers if we’ve seen this kind of obsession grow’?"
Southport MP Patrick Hurley also spoke to warn that public figures had circulated "ridiculous nonsense and lies" online before a trial began. He told the Commons: "I’d like to start by thanking the Home Secretary and also the Prime Minister for the calm, diligent way in which they’ve undertook their work over the last six months, and for the way in which they’ve been good friends to Southport.
"I was clear back in the summer that I did not want people speculating online as to the motives or the background of the person that we can now say was the murderer of those three girls." The Labour MP warned that "the trial could have collapsed because of that speculation, because it wasn’t just speculation but also in some respect downright lies – and downright lies that were being circulated in the interests of gaining political gain for themselves, with the interests of justice a distant second."
He asked: "Will the Home Secretary agree with me that the next stage of achieving justice for my community and the families impacted so desperately by the crime back in July, the public inquiry should also be allowed to undertake its work and make its recommendations free of the ridiculous nonsense and lies that we’ve seen from public figures who should know better circulating purely for their own interests?"
Ms Cooper replied: "He is right that nothing should be done – it is part of our British justice traditions that information is produced at the trial but not in advance for fear of prejudicing a jury, and then for undermining justice and potentially letting criminals walk free."