Brute on radar of professionals tasked with stopping horror stopping him for years

AXEL Rudakubana was left free to butcher the three girls despite six years on the radar of police, anti-extremism authorities and multiple other public agencies.

- By Paul Jeeves and Chris Riches

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the "state had failed" as he launched a public inquiry into repeated missed opportunities to stop Rudakubana's deadly descent.

Warnings were first raised when he was an 11-year-old pupil at Range High School in Formby, Merseyside.

Having appeared in a BBC Children In Need campaign video as Dr Who, he dreamed of becoming a musical theatre star yet lashed out in anger at classmates. Rudakubana was excluded from school in October 2019 when he took a knife in, later claiming he had been the victim of racist bullying.

He returned to school two months later but attacked a pupil with a hockey stick and was expelled. Health workers determined he had an autism spectrum disorder and he went on to attend a sixth form for children with special needs for a few days.