In their first TV interview since losing their children in Axel Rudakubana’s sickening attack on a Taylor Swift themed dance party in Southport, Elsie Stancombe and Bebe King’s parents said they must be involved in the public inquiry into the incident
The grieving parents of two young girls brutally murdered in the Southport attack have demanded they be involved in planning the full public inquiry into how Axel Rudakubana was allowed to walk the streets before committing the fatal mass stabbing.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died after they were attacked at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 last year. In January, Axel Rudakubana was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years.
In their first TV interview, broadcast on Good Morning Britain this morning, the parents of Elsie Stancombe and Bebe King threw their support behind a full investigation into the events surrounding the incident, while stressing that they felt they should be involved in deciding exactly what any such inquiry should and shouldn’t look at.
Bebe’s brave parents told the programme: “Our girls just need to be safe.”
Alice’s parents were invited to appear on the programme as well, but did not yet feel able to speak. GMB stressed they did however support the other bereaved families choosing to go public.
When asked about a public inquiry about the Southport attack this morning, Elsie’s mum Jenni Stancombe told GMB : “It will hold people to account for some of the decisions that they made and as a result allowed this to happen.”
Bebe King’s mother, speaking unpictured and unnamed to the programme to protect her family’s privacy, also agreed. She said: “Our girls just need to be safe, our children need to be safer, and protected.”
The families’ legal representative also made clear that they felt they should be allowed to determine what was and wasn’t looked at in the scope of an inquiry.
Lawyer Sara Stanger went on: “They were all really shocked to hear that the videos that the offender accessed were all available on the open internet. Online safety should be paramount to this inquiry.”
On Prevent – the UK’s counter-terror scheme that is designed to combat extremism and catch potential terrorists – the families also made clear that they felt there had been a major breakdown in process there before the attack was carried out.
Child killer Rudakubana talked about killing a school bully, drew up a hit list and praised terrorist atrocities including the Manchester Arena attack, but had three referrals to the counter-terrorism scheme Prevent in a 16-month period closed with no further action.
A review found that the violence-obsessed loner should have been passed to the higher level support scheme Channel, but staff were too focused on the fact he did not follow any particular murderous ideology.
Elsie’s dad, David Stancombe, told GMB: “The fact that he’s been flagged up so many times, and because he didn’t meet the criteria of certain things, he must be sound, that just doesn’t work does it?”
The Government has since accepted all 14 recommendations for improvements in the Prevent learning review that focused on Southport killer Axel Rudakubana,
Security minister Dan Jarvis, speaking after Rudakubana was sentenced, said counter-terror police have visited all Prevent areas across the country to see if there are outstanding issues identified in the report.
He told MPs that the Government has begun an internal review of the Prevent thresholds, which will be completed in April.
Mr Jarvis said the review will: “Ensure Prevent can deal with the full range of threats we see today, from Islamist extremism, which is the most significant terrorist threat that the UK faces, through to the fascination with mass violence that we saw in the Southport case.”
