Police failed to arrest Southport killer when caught with knife two years before attack

After Axel Rudakubana was caught with a knife on a bus, police took him home and gave his mother ‘advice regarding securing knives in the home’. Photograph: Merseyside Police/PA

Police told Axel Rudakubana’s mother to keep knives out of his reach two years before the Southport attack, after he was caught carrying a blade on a bus.

Lancashire police are facing questions over their handling of the “sadistic” teenager in the years before he murdered three young girls and tried to kill 10 others at a Taylor Swift dance class last summer.