The trial of the Southport Murder States the Search of the Soul over the British approach to terror and justice

When the teenager Axel Rudakuban went on a killer rabies in Southport’s sea city last July, he not only destroyed the lives of his victims and their families, but also sent shocking waves through British society.

On Thursday, the 18-year-old received a 52-year prison For the murder of three little girls and maiming, 10 more, a crime that followed the wave of internet misinformation and clutter against immigration across England.

When complete details of the disturbing history of Rudakubana have emerged this week, they launched a furious debate about the UK’s approach to open justice, as well as a state understanding of modern terrorism.

Rudakubana was arrested on the scene of June last July at the Taylor Swift dance class, which still stands over the body of a child with a kitchen knife in his hand.

In days and weeks, police have announced very few details. Disinformation began to expand online, including the wrong claims that the attacker was an illegal immigrant.

The violent racing riots followed, and the authorities were later accused of concealing, especially those on the right of British politics.

This is the claim that the police, prosecutors and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and the higher lawyer and former head of the Crown Prosecutor’s Office, have repeatedly denied.

“If this trial had collapsed because me or anyone else discovered key details while the police were investigating – while the case was being built, while we were waiting for a verdict – then a nasty individual who committed these crimes would step down from a free man,” Starmer said in Tuesday.

Starmer’s position and prosecutors are based on British disrespect for court laws dating from the early 1980s, which limits which information can be published on the eve of the trial to prevent the jury from sticking.

However, lawyer Jonathan Hall KC, who is currently reviewing the terrorist legislation of the Government, has called the state interpretation of the Failure Law on Southport “Ultra Caution”.

The police, he told the Financial Times, must have released the age of Rudakubana, ethnicity, nationality, his birthplace of Cardiff and the fact that he was from the Christian background of Rwanda.

The appointment would be more complex, because he was 17 at the time, but Hall said that prosecutors could and had to apply for a court order.

“Imagine if [police] He made a clear, peaceful, authoritative, honest, transparent statement on Twitter [now X] Early, “he said.

“Some, of course, will believe the worst or conspiracy theory, but most people are just looking for information.”

The silence of the state may have been ironic counterproductive at the trial, Hall said, because the jury could have had misinformation instead.

The judicial system would now be good to “perfect” your understanding of what “harmful” means in the era of social media, he said, as they have been questioned for decades old contempt under court laws.

The case also caused a debate about understanding the country and a response to terrorist acts.

In a few days of Southport’s killings, police have found that Rudakuban has an al-Qaeda training manual.

Prosecutors would later claim that it was used to plan the attack. He also produced a deadly poisonous ricin in his bedroom before storing it under his bed in a plastic box.

Although charged with possession of materials related to terrorism, he has not been charged with committing a terrorist act. Even the investigation police said they initially fought to understand why.

“I say: Isn’t that terrorism now, isn’t that terrorism, isn’t that terrorism?” He recalled a senior investigative officer Jason Pye, the main detective inspector at the Merseyside police, about his conversations with the prosecutors while the evidence was taking place.

Terrorism fee would also make his investigation clearer, he said. According to the legislation of terrorism, Rudakubana could have been retained for seven days.

Without him, the police had a maximum of 72 hours to put together their case and collect medical evidence relating to 13 victims.

“That would absolutely mean that we have time to do a lot more things,” Pye said of terrorist accusations.

According to prosecutors, a clean range of materials located on 43 Rudakubana devices – together with a lack of explanation for his interview actions – meant he could not accuse him under the 2000 Act.

It defines this terrorism as “for the purpose of progressing a political, religious or ideological cause.” It was later updated to include racial ideology.

Among more than 164,000 seized documents was the violent material related to Nazis, Gaza, Gauzny and Iraq, as well as recordings Attack on Bishop Mars Mary Emmanuel In Australia last April.

“He didn’t fight for a thing,” Prosecutor Deanna Heer said on Thursday. “His only purpose was to kill.”

Starmer said this week to understand “why people wonder what the word” terrorism “means.”

“And so, if the law must change to recognize this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it – and quickly,” he added.

Nevertheless, Hall, who is now reviewing the legislature for home secretary Yvette Cooper, said he was “skeptical” in expanding the definition of terror.

Digging a wider net, he said, could bring individuals like football hooligans or organized criminals.

The Rudakubane case also raised questions about how well the British existing extremism agencies are equipped to deal with young people who have been set by violence.

2022, 15 years old, told police in Lancashire that he had considered poisoning people and producing poison for this purpose, which he later did. The force said she would not comment on before a public investigation.

Rudakubana was also sent to the Government program to prevent anti-Ekstressism three times between 2019 and 2021.

Initially, they sent him at the age of 13, when the school noticed him exploring school shooting on the network.

Subsequently, he was marked for posting on Instagram about former Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, while in April 2021 it was found that he had watched terrorist attacks on London 2017 at school.

At any occasion, you prevent a closed case, noting that there was no coherent ideology behind his procedures. Did not become an object of interest in the anti -terrorist police.

Speaking on the eve of the sentence, Vicki Evans, a senior national police coordinator, said that at the time of his recommendations, the program did not catch a new generation of extremists.

“At the time, a response to the prevention of partnerships to increasing fixation with extreme violence was developing, but it was less developed than today,” she said.

“Although improved improvements in resolving this challenge,” she added, “it is true that questions are asked about what to do.”