There remains some debate online as to whether this was a terrorist attack. The presence of al-Qaeda material in his home does not necessarily point to an Islamist motive. I happen to agree the court’s view, as I understand it, that this does not constitute a terror attack by the current definition. Rather, it is a senseless slaying.
The Guardian reports that between October 2019 and May 2022, police were called to the family home five times due to concerns about Rudakubana’s behaviour. Each time they referred him to local safeguarding officials. He completed a youth justice referral order in 2021 and stopped engaging with mental health services in February 2023.
Despite the involvement of all these agencies, and a knowledge that Rudakubana was violent and “obsessed” with genocides, he continued spiralling. Shut away in his bedroom, he spent hours researching extreme violence online. As early as 2021, he downloaded an al-Qaida textbook, which is banned under UK terrorism laws. A year later he began ordering the items to make the deadly toxin ricin. He bought weapons from Amazon using software to hide his identity.
Here we arrive at point one. (And let’s stick to what is indisputable). The vast estate of agencies which exist to prevent this kind of thing had ample opportunity to do so, yet comprehensively failed. There is the expectation that no-one will be held meaningfully accountable.
It also stands that local authorities and the government attempted to
manage the narrative by withholding information on false pretences,
aggravating, if not causing last year’s riots....<<<Read More>>>...
