By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -A public inquiry into the murders of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport in Britain last year begins on Tuesday, seeking to determine whether the rampage could have been prevented and how to stop any similar atrocity.
Teenager Axel Rudakubana, who was obsessed with violence and genocide, launched the knife attack at the summer vacation event in northern England last July, killing the girls and wounding another 10.
The incident shocked the nation and was followed by days of nationwide rioting.
Just 17 at the time of the attack, Rudakubana was jailed in January for at least 52 years after he admitted the offences just as his trial was about to start. Prosecutors said his motive was not clear and it appeared to be simply the desire to commit mass murder.
After the conviction, Prime Minister Keir Starmer ordered the inquiry into state failings as it emerged in the trial that Rudakubana had been referred to a counter-radicalisation scheme three times, but no action had been taken.
Rudakubana had been involved in previous troubling incidents where he had been arrested carrying a knife. He had also admitted possessing an al Qaeda training manual and producing the lethal poison ricin.
“My focus throughout this inquiry will be a thorough and forensic investigation of all the circumstances surrounding the attack and the events leading up to it,” the inquiry chair, Adrian Fulford, said in a statement.
The inquiry will begin by looking at the teenager’s history and involvement with public bodies, before a second phase examines the wider issue of children being drawn into violence, an increasing concern for British authorities.
Lawyers for the three murdered girls – Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine – said they hoped it would uncover the truth.
“We know that nothing the inquiry reveals, or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again,” they said in a statement.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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