UK finds attack on Taylor Swift-themed class 'preventable'

The results of an inquiry into the killing of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in 2024 was released on Monday, concluding that the massacre could have been prevented. The attack took place in Southport, in northwestern England, when Axel Rudakubana broke into the morning dance class and killed three girls aged 9, 7, and 6 years old. He also wounded eight other children and two adults. The tragic incident led to a week of anti-immigraton riots in more than a dozen English and Northern Irish towns and cities, after false reports that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker. In actuality, Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to a Christian family from Rwanda. History 'would have taken a different course' The 763-page report affirmed that Rudakubana's parents and state agencies were aware of his fixation on violence and the inquiry cataloged the many times parents or authorities could have intervened. Retired judge Adrian Fulford, who led the nine-week inquiry, said that both family and authorities could have prevented Rudakubana from carrying out the attack. Fulford described the killings as unprecedented in the UK for their "extreme and very particular depravity." "History simply would have taken a different course," Fulford said as he published the report. Last year, Rudakubana was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison for the attack. Parents failed to communicate threat The new report faulted Rudakabana's parents for not reporting his behavior and other issues to authorities. It noted that they permitted the delivery of knives and weapons to the home and failed to report critical information in the days leading up to the attack. A lack of oversight of the teenager's online activity would have "provided the clearest indications of his violent preoccupations," the report read. Fulford also accused the parents of having "created significant obstructions" for various government agencies to engage with the teenager, and failed to stand up to his behavior and set boundaries. "If AR’s parents had done what they morally ought to have done, AR would not have been at liberty to conduct the attack and it would not therefore have occurred," Fulford added.Rudakubana had multiple encounters with police The report also took aim at state authorities who failed to manage the risk the teenager represented, despite being on their radar. In 2019, He was convicted at age 13 of assaulting another child at school with a hockey stick and placed under supervision of a local service for youth offenders. Rudakabana was referred to the government's anti-extremism program three times between 2019 and 2021 for expressing interest in school shootings and terrorist attacks. But authorities closed the case each time. Local police had also been called to his home five times over unspecified concerns about his behavior. Although he was provided with mental health and educational support, he reportedly stopped engaging with social workers and was expelled after bringing a knife to school. 'Systemic failures' Fulford said the failure, at an organizational and individual level, to "stand up and accept responsibility" for managing the risk the killer posed was a "frankly depressing — and therefore urgent — matter requiring Government attention." "Far too often, AR's ‘case' was passed from one public sector agency to another in an inappropriate merry-go-round of referrals, assessments, case-closures and 'hand-offs'," he lamented. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reacted to the report by promising changes to correct the "systematic failures that led to this terrible event." "The report today is truly harrowing and profoundly disturbing," Starmer said. "While nothing will ever bring these three little girls back, I'm determined to make the fundamental changes needed to keep the public safe," he added. Edited by: Darko Janjevic