Southport killer’s terror threat referral ‘should have been escalated’

Axel Rudakubana was known to anti-terror authorities before he murdered three young girls at a dance class last summer (Merseyside Police/PA) - (PA Media)

A review into the handling of the Southport child killer under the Government’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent will reveal there was sufficient evidence to consider the teenager a terror threat, it has been reported.

Axel Rudakubana was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years – one of the highest minimum terms on record – for murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 last year.