Killer bought ricin equipment and weapons two years before atrocity

The Southport killer, Axel Rudakubana, bought a cache of deadly weapons - including equipment to make the lethal poison ricin - on Amazon at least two years before he murdered three young girls last summer, it can be revealed.

- Josh Halliday

The "extremely violent" teenager bought items to make ricin in 2022, three years after he came to the attention of the anti-radicalisation programme Prevent, the police and other authorities.

Rudakubana used security software to hide his identity when he bought knives from Amazon in the days before his attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance club in Southport, Merseyside, on 29 July.

It can also be revealed that six minutes before he left his home that day, the 18-year-old searched for a video of the Sydney church stabbing last year in which a bishop was attacked while live-streaming a sermon.

Keir Starmer said yesterday that the failure of the authorities to stop Rudakubana "frankly leaps off the page", as he pledged to "leave no stone unturned" to make changes recommended by a new public inquiry into the atrocity.

It came after the Guardian revealed how Rudakubana had been referred three times to Prevent - in 2019 and twice in 2021 - including once owing to a concern about his potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, it is understood.

He was also on the radar of Lancashire constabulary, his local police force, who had several interactions with him between October 2019 and May 2022 - including five calls from his family relating to concerns about his behaviour. He was then referred to local safeguarding officials, who are said to have supported Rudakubana's family.