The Southport murder trial has sparked soul-searching in the UK’s approach to terror and justice

When teenager Axel Rudakubana went on a killing spree in the seaside town of Southport last July, he not only destroyed the lives of his victims and their families, but sent shockwaves through the British community.

On Thursday, the 18-year-old received 52 years in prison For the murders of three little girls and the maiming of 10 people, the atrocity follows a wave of online disinformation and anti-immigration riots across England.

When the full details of Rudakubana’s harrowing story finally emerged this week, they sparked heated debate over the UK’s approach to open justice, as well as the state’s understanding of modern terrorism.

Rudakubana was arrested last July at the scene of a murder in a Taylor Swift-themed dance hall, still standing over the child’s body with a kitchen knife in hand.

In the following days and weeks, the police released very few details. False information began to spread online, including false claims that the attacker was an illegal immigrant.

Violent racial violence followed and the authorities were later accused of cover-up, especially by people on the British political right.

Police, prosecutors and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, himself a senior lawyer and former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, have repeatedly denied it.

“If this trial had collapsed while I or anyone else was investigating the police — while the case was being built, while we were awaiting a verdict — the despicable individual who committed these crimes would have walked free,” Starmer said Tuesday.

Starmer’s position, and that of prosecutors, is based on contempt of court rules in England dating back to the early 1980s, which limited what information could be released before a trial to prevent jurors from being swayed.

But barrister Jonathan Hall Casey, who is currently reviewing the terrorism legislation for the government, said in the Southport case the state’s interpretation of the contempt law was “extremely cautious”.

Police told the Financial Times they could safely resolve Rudakubana’s age, ethnicity, nationality, Cardiff birthplace and Rwandan Christian background.

Because he was 17 at the time, naming him would have been more complicated, but Hall said prosecutors could and should have applied for a court order to do so.

“Imagine if (the police) had issued a clear, calm, authoritative, honest, clear statement earlier on Twitter (now X),” he said.

Some people really do believe in evil or conspiracy theories, but most people want information.

The state’s silence could have been ironically counterproductive at trial, Hall says, because the jury could have been misinformed instead.

He said the justice system would do well to “clarify” its understanding of what “bias” means now in the age of social media, where decades of court rules are reviewed for contempt.

The case has also sparked debate about how the country understands and responds to terrorist attacks.

Within days of the Southport murder, police discovered that Rudakubana was in possession of an al Qaeda training manual.

Prosecutors would later argue that this was used to plan the attack. He produced the deadly resin in his bedroom before storing it in a plastic box under his bed.

But although he was charged with terrorism, he was not charged with committing an act of terrorism. Even the police working on the investigation said that they initially had difficulty in determining the cause.

“I mean, this is not terrorism now, this is not terrorism now, is this not terrorism now?” Detective Chief Inspector Jason Pye of Merseyside Police recalled a conversation he had with prosecutors when the evidence emerged.

He also said that terrorism charges would make the investigation more straightforward. Under the Terrorism Act, Rudakubana could have been jailed for up to seven days.

Without him, police had a maximum of 72 hours to assemble their case and collect medical evidence on the 13 victims.

“It means we’ll have time to do a lot more,” Pye said of the terror charges.

According to prosecutors, the variety of items found on Rudakubana’s 43 devices – coupled with his failure to explain his actions in interviews – meant he could not be charged under the 2000 Terrorism Act.

That defines terrorism as “the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.” It later evolved to include racial ideology.

Among the more than 164,000 documents seized were violent texts related to the Nazis, Gaza, Grozny and Iraq, as well as recordings. He attacked Pope Mar Marie Emmanuel Last April in Australia.

“He wasn’t fighting for a cause,” prosecutor Deanna Herr said Thursday. “The only intention was to kill.”

“People wonder what the word ‘terrorism’ means,” Starmer said this week.

“And if the law needs to change to recognize this new and dangerous threat – and we will change it quickly,” he added.

However Hall, who is currently reviewing the legislation for Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, said he was “sceptical” about expanding the definition of terrorism.

Casting the net wide can bring in individuals such as football criminals or organized criminals, he said.

Rudakubana’s case has raised questions about how well Britain’s existing counter-extremism agencies can deal with young people caught up in violence.

In the year In 2022, aged 15, he told Lancashire police that he intended to poison people and produce poison for that purpose, which he later did. The force said it would not comment ahead of the public inquiry.

Rudakubana has been nominated three times between 2019 and 2021 for the government’s counter-extremism programme.

He was 13 years old when he first noticed his school investigating school shootings online.

He was subsequently tagged with a post on Instagram about former Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, who was spotted watching the London Bridge terror attacks at a school in April 2017.

In each case, Prevent closed the case by arguing that there was no coherent ideology behind the actions. It was not of interest to the counter-terrorist police.

Vicky Evans, senior national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said before the sentencing that the program had not been linked to a new generation of extremists when it aired.

“At that time, the joint response to prevent the increasing number of attacks was improving, but it was less than today,” she said.

“While improvements have been made to address this challenge, it is right to ask questions about what more needs to be done,” she added.