Good morning. After the horrifying murders of three young girls in Southport last summer, an obvious question presented itself: was there anything we knew about the attacker that might shed light on how this could have happened? After a summer of far-right riots and then a long wait for the legal process to unfold, this week we finally got more clarity on the answers.
At Liverpool crown court on Monday, Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to murdering Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine. His unexpected decision lifted some of the restrictions around contempt of court that have applied to the case, since there was no longer a risk of prejudicing a jury trial. The Guardian was able to reveal that Rudakubana, 18, had been referred to the counter-extremism scheme Prevent three times, but that he was not viewed as a terrorist threat.
