By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-01-22 17:51:08 | Updated at 2025-01-22 20:48:15
3 hours ago
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has called for legal action against bosses of the government's Prevent programme, branding them "morons" over their handling of Southport child-killer Axel Rudakubana.
Speaking on GB News, Anderson demanded that Prevent officials be "sacked, held to account, their pensions took off them and put in the dock and charged."
"They are responsible. They are set up to prevent this sort of nonsense," the MP said, following revelations that Rudakubana had been referred to the counter-terrorism programme three times before the attack.
Rudakubana was first referred to Prevent at age 13 in 2019 over concerns about his interest in US school massacres, which he researched using school computers.
Lee Anderson spoke to Martin Daubney
GB NEWS
After one referral, it was recommended he be referred to other services, though it remains unclear if this occurred.
Despite extensive searches, police found no evidence of terrorist motivation for the Southport attack.
An emergency review following the stabbings found that Prevent's policies, covering criteria for accepting individuals for de-radicalisation work, were correctly followed.
Sources told media there remains a "grey area" in cases where young people may pose a risk of violence without showing signs of terrorist ideology.
"There is a gap for those who are volatile, who need management, who may be dangerous. There is nothing for them," one source said.
Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last July.
He also admitted to 10 counts of attempted murder and possession of a bladed article.
Additional charges he pleaded guilty to included producing ricin and possessing an al-Qaeda training manual, described as information useful for terrorism purposes.
The Crown Prosecution Service called him "a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence."
Anderson told GB News that he had questioned the Home Secretary about 162 people referred to Prevent last year over suspected interest in school massacres.
"I asked her how many of the 162 are still in detention. Want to know the answer? She couldn't give me one. I will tell you what the answer is, it's zero," he said.
The MP also referenced the killing of Sir David Amess, noting that his killer had also been referred to Prevent before the attack.
