'I hate my school': the growing group of would-be killers flying under the radar

US shootings fuel a rise in plots to attack UK classrooms. The challenge is to spot likely perpetrators, reports Lizzie Dearden

- Lizzie Dearden

On the morning of 13 September, 18-year-old Nicholas Prosper was arrested while walking on a residential road in Luton. Minutes before, he had murdered his mother, younger brother and sister, shooting them dead in their family home.

Neighbours called police after hearing gunfire coming from the flat in Leabank tower, on Luton's Marsh Farm estate, and officers found Prosper shortly afterwards on Bramingham Road. Later that day, searches of the area uncovered a loaded shotgun and more than 30 cartridges hidden in a nearby bush.

Police now believe Prosper had only carried out the first half of his plan, and was plotting a shooting at St Joseph's Catholic primary school, where he and his siblings were pupils years before. The location where the teenager was detained sits on the most direct walking route between his home and the school, meaning the incident could be the closest Britain has come to a school shooting since the 1996 Dunblane massacre.

Police revealed the plot after Prosper pleaded guilty on Monday to murdering his mother, Juliana Falcon, 48, sister Giselle Prosper, 13, and brother Kyle Prosper, 16.

Detective Chief Inspector Sam Khanna, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said: "What was uncovered during our investigation left no doubt as to his intentions to carry out an attack at a school, but fortunately Prosper was apprehended before he could cause further harm."

The case is one of a growing number of school-shooting plots detected in the UK, where young men and boys are being inspired by online material glorifying US massacres, including the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. In the year to March 2024, 162 referrals were made to Prevent (the government-led counter-terrorism scheme) related to interest in school massacres, up 2% on the year before. Only 19 resulted in people being adopted for intervention and mentoring under the programme.