Call for new scheme to detect violent attackers

A new scheme to detect people who are obsessed with violence before they kill, such as the Southport attacker, Axel Rudakubana, should be considered by the government, an official report will say.

- Vikram Dodd

The report into Prevent, the scheme intended to stop people from becoming terrorists, will also find repeated failings in the case of the man who went on to assassinate the MP Sir David Amess, the Guardian understands.

The report has been compiled by David Anderson KC, the interim reviewer of Prevent. It was first ordered by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, in January after revelations in the Guardian that the Southport attacker had been referred three times to Prevent and rejected each time because officials believed he was not motivated by any clear terrorist ideology.

Anderson was later asked to examine mistakes in how the scheme handled the case of Ali Harbi Ali in the years before he stabbed Amess to death as the MP held a constituency surgery in 2021.

The findings are likely to intensify the campaign by the family of the murdered Tory MP that there should be a public inquiry into what the authorities knew about the dangers posed by his killer, and whether he could have been stopped. The government has so far resisted that call.

Rudakubana was 17 when he stabbed three young girls to death at a summer holiday dance class in July 2024 in Southport, and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults who tried to protect them.