What is the Prevent programme and how many referrals does it get?published at 12:51 Greenwich Mean Time 21 January

12:51 GMT 21 January

By Lucy Gilder

It has emerged that Axel Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times before he committed the Southport murders.

Prevent is a government scheme which aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism and each year, several thousand referrals – concerning mostly young men – are made to it.

In the year to March 2024, there were nearly 7,000 referrals, external made to Prevent in England and Wales.

Where the type of referral was specified, more than a third (2,489) were for individuals assessed as vulnerable but with “no ideology or counter terrorism risk”.

The second most common type of referral was for “extreme right-wing concerns” (1,314), followed by referrals for ”conflicted ideology” (1,278) and “Islamist ideology” (913).

Of the total number of referrals that year, 7% received additional Channel support. This next level of intervention happens after it’s been assessed that there is a genuine risk of radicalisation.

We've just seen a letter to parents from Range High School in Formby - from where Axel Rudakubana was expelled in Year 9.

The letter, sent last night by headteacher Mike McGarry, says: "Rudakubana was a pupil at Range High a number of years ago but was immediately and permanently excluded from our school after we became aware of his behaviour at that time."

It adds: "We are aware of reports in the media that Range High may have been a location of interest in the days leading up to those tragic events in Southport.

"I want to reassure everyone that the safety and wellbeing of our students and staff have always been and always will be our number one priority."

On Monday, it emerged that Rudakubana tried to reach the school a week before the Southport attacks, but was stopped by his father.

After Keir Starmer spoke this morning from Downing Street, we're now expecting a statement on the Southport stabbings some time after 13:15 GMT in the House of Commons.

We're expecting Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who announced the public inquiry into the attack, to deliver the statement.

It's been a busy 24 hours in the Southport story - here's everything you need to know:

• In a last minute change in pleas, Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty yesterday to murdering three girls in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last year
• After his guilty pleas, a long history of violent behaviour was revealed - he had been expelled from school, attacked another pupil with a hockey stick, been visited by police five times, and referred to the government's counter-terrorism Prevent programme three times

• Sir Keir Starmer said Rudakubana's actions in Southport were "vile and sick" and that there were "grave questions to answer" about how the state failed to protect the public
• That sentiment was echoed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who announced a public inquiry into the attacks yesterday evening
• At a news conference this morning, the prime minister said "Britain faces a new threat", as "terrorism has changed" with "extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms"

For more on Rudakubana's violent history, and how the state failed to stop him, watch our report from Judith Moritz below:

Merseyside's police and crime commissioner says state agencies are facing a "whole range of challenges" and she hopes an inquiry into the Southport attack will "get to the bottom of this".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Emily Spurrell echoes the prime minister's speech earlier this morning, saying "things are changing... risk is changing... and the way we view terrorism is changing".

There is a need to get to "the bottom of what are the challenges that are being posed now, and what do we need to adapt", she adds.

Spurrell is asked if the issues highlighted by the Southport stabbings were to do with communication, or the resources available to agencies.

"We have seen huge cuts to our public services, and it has absolutely taken its toll. We cannot ignore that," she says, but adds it's important that that's not used "as an excuse".

We’ve got some more reaction to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech, from a councillor who lives on the road where the Southport attack took place.

Speaking to BBC News, Sefton Councillor Sean Halsall says some in the community have been left “shell shocked” by some of the details that have emerged about the killer Axel Rudakubana since his guilty pleas yesterday.

“Serious questions” should be asked of how multiple state agencies failed to protect his community despite repeated warnings about the killer, he says.

He accepts that spending cuts may have been partly responsible for agency failings, but adds “it can’t just be about funding", and he hopes concrete proposals arise from the public inquiry into the attack.

Sarah McEntee, a mother in Southport who runs the local Royal British Legion Community Hub that helps the victims' families, describes the "absolute shock" that she and other parents felt when they heard Axel Rudakubana had changed his pleas to guilty yesterday.

"Everybody had been preparing themselves for several weeks of trial," she says, adding that it brought some relief.

Asked on BBC Woman's Hour if Sir Keir Starmer's admission that families had been failed was helpful to hear, she says it's not necessarily a surprise that the killer was known to authorities before the attack.

Reflecting on the announcement of a public inquiry into the attack, she says it will only be helpful "if the system changes, and it's about addressing the challenges young people have as soon as we possibly can".

Phil Cunliffe & Lynette Horsburgh
BBC News

A man who sheltered children as they fled the Southport attack has expressed his relief that parents are being spared having to relive the trauma in a trial - following the killer Axel Rudakubana's guilty pleas yesterday.

Steve, who lives near the venue where the attack took place during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, told how he was disturbed by screams before allowing about a dozen fleeing children to take refuge in his home.

"They were all saying 'he's got a knife and he is stabbing everybody' so I just ran back over to see what I could do." Their worried parents then started arriving, he said.

"I'm glad for the parents they haven't all got to sit there day after day going through it all and listen to horrific things that have happened to their kids," he said.

Steve himself had been due to give evidence, so added he was personally relieved, too.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey welcomes the announcement of an inquiry into the Southport attack, saying it "must not shy away from asking tough questions about what went wrong".

"This was an utterly horrific tragedy," he says, and his "thoughts go out to the bereaved families".

"We need to ensure that such a senseless attack cannot happen again," Davey adds, and "we must learn from these events, and the inquiry must urgently get us the answers we need to avoid future failures".

Reacting to Starmer’s statement, Southport's Labour MP Patrick Hurley says he’s "really pleased" the PM has "so forcefully got a grip of this issue".

As the families begin to receive justice, Hurley says, the "root causes" of the Southport murders need to be investigated, including the Prevent programme - the UK's scheme to prevent terrorism at early stages.

"It certainly needs to be reformed and brought up to date," Hurley says. "The threat from extremism is much more distributed and non-organisational... we have people actively self-radicalising online.

"I don’t think that Prevent specifically, but law enforcement and social services more generally, have yet got to grips that that’s the changing nature of the threats to the UK."

Image source, PA Media

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

That was a significant speech from the prime minister - certainly one of the big moments of his six months in Downing Street so far.

He started with addressing the horrific, "brutal" murders committed by Axel Rudakubana, but then he broadened it out much more.

Starmer talked about the changing nature of terrorism, and he questioned whether the legal architecture of the state has kept pace with that. He also announced that Lord Anderson KC is going to look at the Prevent counter-terrorism system, which as we now know failed to pick up Rudakubana after he was referred.

But then he talked much more broadly about society, about how "too many people have fallen into parallel lives", and about the rights and obligations that people once would have owed to one another fraying.

This was the prime minister promising that he will deal with not just the specific things that have come out in this case, but also wanting to use those to address what he sees as failings in British society.

It’s a bold ambition, and one against which he will now be judged.

Image source, PA Media

Keir Starmer has just finished speaking to reporters inside Downing Street about a public inquiry into the Southport attack. Here's what he had to say:

• The attacks in Southport, in which three young girls killed, will be a "line in the sand" and will require difficult questions to be asked about how Britain protects its children
• The case is a "sign that Britain faces a new threat" not just from terrorist organisations, and that "terrorism has changed", the PM said
• The PM acknowledged the failure of the Prevent programme, and said the government would review and change terrorism laws if needed
• Starmer said he and the public inquiry would not "let any institution of the state deflect from their failures" and that "the failure leaps off the page"
• He took on the claims of a cover-up, and denied that he could have revealed details about the case earlier, as doing so would have risked collapsing the trial
• Asked if more information had been shared with the public at the time, could it have prevented the summer riots? He said that responsibility for the summer violence lies with those who perpetrated it

The killer, Axel Rudakubana, pleaded guilty yesterday and will be sentenced on Thursday. Starmer didn't address when exactly the public inquiry into the Southport killings will begin.

Starmer is asked if he now considers the Southport stabbings a "terrorist attack" and whether people should be worried about future attacks.

He says he believes it was an act of "extreme violence clearly intended to terrorise", and he's concerned that it appears to be different to the more organised acts of terrorism that we've seen before.

"It doesn't fit as well in our frameworks", he adds, and "that has to be addressed".

"I do think it's new... it is not an isolated ghastly example", but a different kind of threat, he says. "We will rise to that challenge."

The prime minister finishes his remarks. Stay with us as we recap his key points.

Harry Cole from the Sun stresses that the UK public were repeatedly told that the Southport attacks were not terror related - "this isn't true", he says.

The journalist outlines the timeline differences between the murder and terror-related charges, and asks whether the public "had a right to know" that the toxin ricin was being produced on their streets - Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to producing the toxin.

Starmer says that in this case, it is a "new threat" and not what would have been considered terrorism when the guidelines were drawn up.

But he says that the extreme violence in this case is "clearly an act of terrorism", and adds that he intends to change the law as necessary to bring it up to date.

The prime minister is now asked if he regrets blaming the far-right for the riots in Southport.

Starmer reiterates that the responsibility for the violence lies with those who perpetrated it.

He recalls "seeing the impact" on workers in Southport who responded to the stabbings, when he visited to the scene. He says those same officers were then policing the riots that followed and had objects thrown at them.

"Nobody can justify that," he says.

Next, Starmer is asked whether he feels he could have acted more quickly to prevent misinformation that caused the riots.

The PM admits it is frustrating that different rules currently appear to apply to online content - where different information is able to spread.

But, he reiterates that the law required him not to disclose information that might have risked the collapse of a trial at the time.

The next question comes from Beth Rigby from Sky News, who asks about Rudakubana's previous interactions with the state, and whether that was withheld during the riots to prevent them intensifying.

"Responsibility for the disorder and violence lies with those who perpetrated it," he says.

But "there has been a failure here" and that needs investigating.

Starmer says he knew details about the case as they were being found out, but says "you know, and I know, it wouldn't have been right" to release them publicly.

He says that if he revealed that information it risked the trial collapsing, and "I'm never going to do that".

Starmer's speech is finished, and the first question from the media is from the BBC's Vicki Young.

She asks whether waiting until the inquiry is complete to make change might mean chances are missed to stop similar attacks in the meantime.

Starmer responds that a public inquiry is needed to ensure "no stone is left unturned", and also because the country is learning to deal with a new type of danger.

"We need an inquiry because we are dealing with a new cohort, a different threat, this individualised extreme violence, and we have to have the laws and framework in place to deal with it."

But, he says that he accepts concerns about delays, and stresses that the government will not wait until the inquiry's findings to begin making change.

Image source, PA Media

We need to "hold up the mirror" and "[face] what we can see", the prime minister says, regardless of what the inquiry might find out.

"Most importantly", he says, "we will act".

He reiterates that Southport "will be a line in the sand". "We will honour those three little girls," he says.

Starmer reflects on the events back at the end of July, and says he remembers how the community in Southport braved the violence of the riots that followed.

"Despite all of that, they chose to come together... they chose to rebuild brick by brick," the PM says.

This country has no shortage of empathy for the people of Southport, he says.

As a result, Starmer says the inquiry is about giving people confidence and "holding up the mirror and facing what we've seen".