Southport attack was ‘not an act of terrorism,’ Met chief Sir Mark Rowley tells LBC
24 January 2025, 08:13 | Updated: 24 January 2025, 09:19
Southport attack was ‘not an act of terrorism,’ Sir Mark Rowley
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told LBC that the Southport attack which claimed the lives of three young girls was "not an act of terrorism".
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Speaking with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Sir Mark Rowley was asked to clarify whether the stabbing, which left three dead and 10 injured, was classed as an act of terrorism.
Sir Mark Rowley admitted: “Not on the law as it is today, no."
"That’s what police decided, CPS decided,” he said, highlighting that "changes are needed" were needed when it came to the categorisation of crime.
The police chief's response follows the sentencing of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, 18, who carried out the attack on a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport on July 29 last year.
The Met chief also touched on the lack of information fed to the public by police in the wake of the attack - which contributed to widespread misinformation and subsequent riots.
He highlighted that the UK has some of the strictest contempt of court laws anywhere in the world, adding the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has to ensure that trials are fair and not subject to prejudice.
"It is frustrating," he admitted, "but it is the law".
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"In our legal system… there is a risk it would have undermined the trial."
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to 52 years behind bars on Thursday.
Ahead of sentencing, it was revealed the teenager had been referred to the government's anti-terror organisation Prevent on three separate occasions over violent material accessed online.
Following the attacks, a slew of extremist material was found to have been accessed using the teen's electronic devices - including terrorism manuals, extremist videos of school shootings and research on the Rwandan genocide.
Asked by Nick whether anti-extremism organisation Prevent was fit for purpose, the commissioner said: “Lots of people looked at him and weren’t able to get their hands round him.”
Read more: Southport murder victims parents speak of 'lifetime of grief' after an act of 'pure evil'
“The Prevent programme does lots of good work," he insisted, admitting that on this occasion "the system has failed".
“The Prevent officers didn’t feel this was a case for them. The system has failed,” he reiterated.
“We're never going to stop every young violent man. We need to be as good as possible at it, and there are too many men, young men, online, obsessing about this violent material.
"Some of that's about how we intervene with individuals, some of that's about the rules for online material and what people can digest and watch and that's part of the challenge."
Nick went on to quote the words of Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy, asking Sir Mark about strict CPS rules that saw local police effectively gagged where information was concerned.
"Since day one, we’ve wanted to say much more to show we are being open, but we’ve been advised throughout that we can’t by the CPS," Nick quoted.
Sir Mark conceded: "It is frustrating, but it is the law".
Sir Mark Rowley admitted that more needed to be done where transparency is concerned.
"In our legal system… there is a risk it would have undermined the trial.
"I completely share Serena Kennedy’s sentiment… I think it would be great if we can have changes that mean information can be shared earlier…. "
He added: "We need changes."
Reflecting on the "horrific" material many teens are accessing, he said many are "grazing on" a diet of "beheadings" and "terrorist ideology" over the internet.
During a search of Rudakubana's home, police found a host of weapons, including arrows, a machete, a kitchen knife purchased off amazon, as well as well as a Tupperware container containing homemade ricin.
A terrorist PdF manual, entitled ‘Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual', was found on his device.
It comes as an LBC investigation has uncovered how extremists are openly using social media platforms to share violent propaganda and detailed operational manuals with content available to anyone with an internet connection.
Our team identified several open-access channels containing this material within hours of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warning tougher laws could be needed to regulate the "nightmares of the online world" after it emerged Axel Rudakubana trawled the internet for extremely violent content before the Southport atrocity.
The Prime Minister also warned Britain faces a new threat of terrorism from “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms” following the Southport murders.
