Prevent report finds systemic failures after Southport murders

A new report by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary has found systemic failures across the UK's counter-terrorism safeguarding network. It says efforts to protect people at risk of radicalisation have not kept pace with changing threats. The assessment focuses on Prevent, the government's counter-radicalisation programme, and describes problems that stretch across the agencies meant to keep the public safe.

Axel Rudakubana took a taxi to a children's dance club in Southport in July 2024. He murdered three girls with a knife and injured 10 other people. The first findings of the Southport inquiry said the attack should and could have been prevented. Rudakubana had been referred to Prevent three times, first when he was 13 and twice more at 14.

The report found that Prevent needs more and better trained staff because it currently has too many complex cases to deal with. It also found that different agencies were often not sharing information well enough or intervening early enough. Information sharing between police forces, counter-terrorism police and other organisations was described as weak and ineffective. When a vulnerable individual is referred through the system, there is often no update shared between the parties involved.

The report raised concerns about the online space. Tech Against Terrorism found 30,000 unique examples of terrorist content and alerted host platforms so that it could be removed. Adam Hadley of Tech Against Terrorism said there is no central department that looks at the internet. He described the approach as fragmented and said there is no consolidated approach. He added that if authorities do not know what is on the internet and what children are seeing, it is hard to work out what to do about it.

Referrals to Prevent have risen dramatically since Southport. Last year, more than half of referrals related to people with no identifiable ideology. The report said there is no national model for managing so-called violence-fixated individuals, and existing public protection tools do not always work effectively. It gave the example of a social worker who is concerned about a child but may not know who to refer them to. The default is often Prevent, but Prevent is designed as a counter-extremism and counter-terrorism mechanism. A child who is fixated and perpetrating violence for no apparent reason may not be an extremist in a clear sense, and the case may not be terrorism either. With tens of thousands of practitioners trying to support vulnerable people, the report warned that without a clear definition and framework, cases can go very badly wrong.

The report calls for stronger national leadership. The Home Office said that since Southport it has made several improvements to the counter-terrorism system to ensure it can effectively tackle threats. It added that threats are changing rapidly.