What could Lancashire County Council have done differently before Southport murders?
The publication of the first of two reports from the national public inquiry set up in the wake of the murders means learnings for Lancashire County Council
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While the Southport murders did not happen with Lancashire County Council’s area, the murderer lived in Banks which is in West Lancashire.
That means that Lancashire County Council’s involvement with him prior to the attack has come under the microscope.
And it was found that there was a ‘notable lack of appreciation’ of the need to address the risk the murderer potentially could cause ahead of the attack.
We look at the findings in today’s edition.
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Lancashire briefing
🕳️ Urgent demands have been made for flooding to be tackled on the M65 in east Lancashire, ‘before any more loss of life or injuries’. Pendle councillors from different parties have called on Lancashire County Council to sort-out drainage problems on the M65’s eastern section, which they say causes flooding in heavy rain. The M65 has seen a number of accidents in recent years including a seven-car smash near Blackburn last month. The motorway is maintained by National Highways from Preston to Junction 10 at Burnley and by Lancashire County Council between Junction 10 and 14 at Colne. Pendle councillors have called for specific action on the section towards Junction 14, where they believe drain problems and a lack of lighting at night are creating hazards for drivers.
🩺 West Lancashire councillors are again challenging NHS bosses over plans to move children’s accident and emergency care from Ormskirk General Hospital to Southport. Last month, new regional integrated care boards (ICBs) for the NHS in Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside decided to relocate children’s A&E services from Ormskirk to Southport, aiming to create a 24/7 service with existing adult A&E care. NHS chiefs believe it will bring various long-term benefits for patients, hospital facilities and medical staff. And they held a public consultation on ideas last year. Currently, Ormskirk District Hospital has women and children’s services including A&E, surgery and maternity. Adult A&E services were moved to Southport in the past. However, West Lancashire councillors have raised concerns at various meetings, especially about local access and travel distances to A&E care. Now, the Our West Lancashire (OWL) group of councillors are calling on council chiefs to contact health authorities and local MPs about the issue.
📚 Almost 450 homes are to be built in a Preston suburb after after a major new estate was given the go-ahead – but there is no indication of when a primary school promised for the same site will be delivered. Preston City Council’s planning committee approved the development on land between William Young Way and Maxy House Road in Cottam. The properties will range from one to four bedrooms in size across a variety of house types. The blueprint for that expansion – adopted back in 2017 – stipulated that land should be set aside for two primary schools on a pair of plots within the new housing zone, which sits south of the M55 and also includes Higher and Lower Bartle and Lightfoot Green. It is understood that Lancashire County Council has no immediate plans for construction and decisions will be taken in line with demand.
What could Lancashire County Council have done differently before Southport murders?
By Paul Faulkner
A Lancashire-led probe into the contact between local agencies and Southport killer Axel Rudakubana could be scrapped.
It comes after publication of the first of two reports from the national public inquiry set up in the wake of the murders, in July 2024, of Bebe King, who was six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, and nine-year old Alice da Silva Aguiar.
Lancashire County Council and Lancashire Police were amongst several public sector bodies whose involvement with Rudakubana prior to his attack – at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the coastal town – has been put under the microscope as part of the inquiry process.
A dozen recommendations have been made to the county council for actions it should now take in response to the findings of the first-phase report – which was published on Monday (13 April) – while the police force has received seven.
In January last year – less than a week after the then 18-year-old Rudakubana, from the village of Banks in West Lancashire, pleaded guilty to the murders – it was announced that a local child safeguarding practice review (CSPR) was to take place.
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, had already said – within 24 hours of the guilty pleas – that an independent public inquiry would be carried out into the atrocity.
As a result, Lancashire County Council had to liaise with the government over how – and whether – the national inquiry could affect the local review.
It is understood that the Lancashire CSPR was paused shortly afterwards, before fully getting under way.
While the review has not officially been cancelled, the expectation among the agencies spearheading the process is understood to be that the public inquiry will supersede the work that they had been planning to undertake.
However, a final decision on the future of the CSPR will not be made until the national inquiry concludes.
Inquiry chair Sir Adrian Fulford said on Monday that he expected its second phase to take roughly as long as the first, which lasted 12 months.
As part of CSPR – commissioned by the Lancashire Children’s Safeguarding Assurance Partnership – a trio of experts were set to examine the roles of the raft of services that dealt with Rudakubana in the years before he went on the rampage in Southport at the age of 17.
The partnership – made up of Lancashire County Council, Lancashire Constabulary and the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board – exists to improve how agencies work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It requests CSPRs in an attempt to learn from incidents in which children have been harmed – and to reduce the risk of similar cases happening in future.
However, that is also one of the primary purposes of the nationwide inquiry, which has been exploring the roles of the county council’s children’s social care and education services, the police, the NHS and the counter-terrorism strategy Prevent during the period from when Rudakubana’s behaviour began to “markedly deteriorate” in September 2019 through to the day of the killings on 29th July, 2024.
Speaking at Liverpool Town Hall on Monday, Sir Adrian said that “if the relevant agencies, individually and collectively, had properly managed and responded to the known danger that AR [Rudakubana] posed to others – from December 2019 onwards – it is highly likely that this event would not have occurred”.
“There would instead have been a range of entirely different outcomes, which would have included AR being taken into care as being beyond his parents’ control – which he was – or into custody, for instance, as a result of his production or attempted production of the poison ricin.
“History simply would have taken a different course,” Sir Adrian added.
The near 800-page report condemned the “failure of any organisation or multi-agency arrangement to take ownership of the risk that AR posed”, as reflected by the “disturbing lack of clarity as to who, if anyone, was the lead agency, which persisted through the inquiry’s hearings”.
“Witnesses in appropriate positions were asked who was responsible for AR’s risk. There was no consistent response,” the document explained.
Sir Adrian’s first recommendation is that the second phase of his own inquiry should “consider what single agency or structure should be appointed or established to record, monitor and co-ordinate interventions for children and young people who present a high risk of serious harm”.
His report also noted what were described as “significant parental failures” – notwithstanding the pressure that Sir Adrian acknowledged Rudakubana’s mother and father were under as a result of their son’s deteriorating behaviour.
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