Prevent’s assessment of the danger posed by Axel Rudakubana followed policy at the time, an official review will find but it will criticise the scheme for rejecting extra help to tackle his interest in violence.
This week the government is expected to publish the review into Prevent’s handling of the three referrals of Rudakubana, the last of which was three years before he commited his atrocity on a school summer holiday dance class in Southport.
The decisions of Prevent, the official scheme to spot people before they become terrorists, have been criticised by the prime minister, and the government has announced inquiries into what it does and how wide its remit is.
Sir Peter Fahy, the former police lead for Prevent, warned the revelations about the scheme’s three rejections of adopting Rudakubana’s case – which were first reported by the Guardian – have plunged counter-terrorism into one of its worst reputational crises.
Some in policing compare their willingness to answer questions after Rudakubana changed his plea to guilty last Monday to those in mental health and other sectors, who they say have avoided answering questions.
Prevent learning reviews are not usually made public but the government has decided to make an exception for the one into the Southport killer. Some of the families worst affected by the atrocity have had access to a copy since Friday.
Counter-terrorism policing is bracing itself for further criticism when it is made public, as Rudakubana had been deemed unsuitable for Prevent because he did not follow any ideology.
Fahy said: “counter-terrorism policing has been damaged reputationally, it has been in the forefront of criticism. There is a misunderstanding about what Prevent is about.
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Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism, told the Guardian a new scheme should be set up to tackle those obsessed with extreme violence, and Prevent’s focus on spotting terrorists should not be diluted.
He said: “The narrative danger of the current conversation is you don’t know the scale of this problem – you massively underestimate it – and you will assume they can all be stopped. They can’t. The reality of both is that both conclusions are disturbing. The scale is vast and you’ll never stop them all. It shouldn’t stop us trying though and the review is the best place to start …
“You do need a parallel well-funded system that doesn’t expand and divert the counter-terrorism mission.”
Yeah if the primary focus is on Prevent then its scapegoating. Prevent is there to tackle people being radicalised - its not there to detect and police all violent people in society.
The real failings are in police, mental health services and social services - all of which have had resources slashed due to austerity.
Blaming Prevent is a distraction - counter terrorism is not the route this very violent and sick individual should have been caught before committing an atrocity.
I work in the NHS and the real question for me is how a very sick and dangerous child could have been allowed to walk away by child mental health services whose excuse has been that he "failed to engage". A child does not have autonomy to decide to engage or not - it is the mental health services and social services that failed to follow him up.
A child that was too dangerous to even be allowed on site at a specialist school - he was managed from home for staff and pupil safety - should have had heavy mental health and social service input. Prevent would be able to offer nothing.
The whole story is an indictment of the failure of the state over the last 15 years since the ideological nonsense of austerity has ravaged the UK public sector and services.