Lone wolf terrorism a huge challenge - Colin Parry

Colin Parry set up the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation in 1995

The father of a young boy killed by an IRA bomb has said the change in terrorism Sir Keir Starmer warned Britain now faced was a "huge challenge" to tackle.

The prime minister said the new threat was acts of extreme violence by "loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom" accessing material online after the government announced a public inquiry into the Southport murders by Axel Rudakubana.

Colin Parry set up a peace centre in memory of his son, Tim, and another boy killed in a blast in Warrington, Cheshire, in 1993.

He said security forces back then "knew where IRA members lived" but a "lone wolf" like Rudakubana was difficult to intercept.

Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe were killed in the Southport knife attacks

Twelve-year-old Tim was killed alongside three-year-old Johnathan Ball when the IRA detonated bombs, near a busy shopping centre in 1993.

Mr Parry set up the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation in 1995, and opened a peace centre in 2000 which aims to bring communities together, help victims and provide peaceful alternatives to the use of violence in conflict situations.

He said: "A lone operator, a very disturbed young man who has probably converted himself to such harsh beliefs and harsh behaviours... maybe just in his own bedroom turned himself into the dangerous person he became," he said.

Mr Parry said it was "a huge challenge" to tackle.

"I don't know how he - or people like him - can be intercepted before they do something terrible as he did.

"The security forces back in the day knew where active IRA members lived and could undertake considerable surveillance techniques," he said.

He warned people to be on their guard for family members becoming isolated and if they suspected they had become radicalised to tell police or other agencies.

He said: "They really do have to speak up because the consequences not just for them but the wider community can be awful."

Rudakubana, 18, of Banks, Lancashire, killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and injured 10 others on 29 July.