Yvette Cooper has announced a major Home Office review after failings by counterterrorism officers who dismissed the Southport killer's violent behaviour and obsession with extremism before he murdered three young girls.
She announced a review of Prevent referral thresholds is underway, particularly focusing on individuals "obsessed with school massacres" and "Islamist extremism".
Last year, 162 people were referred to Prevent over concerns about their interest in school massacres.
The Home Office review found the referrals should not have been closed, stating officers placed too much weight on the "absence of ideology" while failing to consider an obsession with massacre and extreme violence.
Axel Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent programme three times
Reuters
The "cumulative" significance of multiple referrals was not properly considered, according to the review.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Cooper said interventions should not stop when people are suspected to be neurodiverse, as Axel Rudakubana was diagnosed with autism.
"Where individuals are suspected to be neurodiverse, interventions should not stop because they are awaiting assessments, ignoring any risks they might pose," she said.
Cooper highlighted a "serious problem" when cases fall below the Prevent threshold but other agencies fail to step in.
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A pilot scheme for new arrangements in such cases will launch next month, she announced.
Axel Rudakubana was referred to the Prevent programme three times, with officers receiving information about his interest in school shootings, terror attacks and extremist content.
Officers repeatedly concluded he simply had "an interest in news and current affairs" despite his history of carrying knives and attacking another pupil.
"The counterterrorism officers decided he had an interest in news and current affairs, but was not in danger of being radicalised," a source with knowledge of the Prevent review told The Sunday Times.
The review criticises officers for failing to properly consider his fixation with extreme violence.
Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years for murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Bebe King, 6, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, in what was described in court as a "shocking" and "pure evil" knife attack.
He received a three-year discount on his sentence for pleading guilty, with families and politicians expressing anger that he fell short of a full-life tariff due to being 17 at the time.
Eight other children were seriously injured in the attack, along with dance class leader Leanne Lucas and businessman Jonathan Hayes.
Rudakubana's first Prevent referral came in December 2019, when a teacher reported him looking at US school shooting articles and trying to discuss them during IT lessons.
Just six days later, he attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, breaking their wrist. Police found a knife in his backpack.
His second referral in February 2021 came after former pupils spotted him posting images of Colonel Gaddafi on Instagram.
The third referral occurred in April 2021, when teachers discovered his computer had tabs open about the London Bridge terrorist attack and the 2005 London bombings.
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were all killed in the attackFamily handoutsBefore these referrals, he had called Childline reporting he had taken knives to school "on several occasions" and had thoughts of killing somebody.
After each referral, Prevent officers repeatedly closed Rudakubana's case, claiming there were "no radicalisation concerns" and that his behaviour wasn't linked to any ideology.
Officers had access to police records showing his violent incidents, yet still deemed other services like Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services were better suited to handle his case.
They could have escalated his case to Channel, the next stage of Prevent, which would have provided extremism experts and mentors to intervene.
"Islamic extremists might be paired with an imam, for example, or with the far right, there are several reformed former far-right activists we use to help divert away from extremism," a source told The Sunday Times.
Yet this intervention never happened.
Home Office sources revealed Rudakubana showed signs of being "obsessed with notoriety", writing to the National Crime Agency at age 16 to ask if he was "known to them".
Meanwhile, he accessed material online relating to Nazi Germany, genocides in Rwanda, war crimes in Eastern Europe, al-Qaeda content, and extreme cartoons depicting insulting images relating to Islam.
Vicky Evans, national head of Prevent, admitted: "We need to consider whether the counterterrorism system needs to change."
She acknowledged their response to fixations with extreme violence was less developed in the past than today.
"We have spoken about the growing number of young people with complex fixations with violence and gore in our casework. But with no clear ideology other than that fascination," Evans said.
This marks the fourth time someone known to Prevent has committed atrocities, following the 2020 Reading stabbing spree, Parsons Green bombing and murder of MP Sir David Amess.
MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum warned they were "seeing far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism".
