This is a chilling and deeply human story that begins with a single, haunting phone call on October 4, 2019. A 13-year-old British boy from a small village in northwest England called a child welfare hotline with a disturbing question: “What should I do if I want to kill somebody?” That boy, Axel Rudakubana, would later commit one of the most horrifying attacks on children in recent British history, leaving an entire nation grappling with profound questions about how systems meant to protect society failed so catastrophically. This story unfolds not just as a tragedy but as a broader reflection of the growing, ill-defined dangers of our times.
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### A Child in Crisis
Axel’s journey into violence didn’t happen overnight. When he made the first call to the hotline back in 2019, he explained that he had started carrying a knife to school because he was being bullied. He even candidly admitted to the police that he might use it in anger. This was the first major red flag. Systems were activated as child welfare counselors referred his case to the police, but the intervention did not seem to go far or deep enough.
Over the next couple of years, Axel’s behavior and warning signs escalated. By 14, he was diagnosed with autism and had become increasingly reclusive, anxious, and aggressive. He received mental health care but eventually disengaged from treatment entirely by 2023. Worryingly, during his teenage years, he also became obsessed with violent content online.
Axel’s digital footprint was horrifying, to say the least. When police searched his devices after his arrest, they unearthed 164,000 pieces of graphic content, including images of dead bodies, scenes of torture, and beheadings. His internet history revealed a chaotic fixation on violence from various conflicts around the world, from Nazi Germany to Gaza and the Balkans. He had even gone as far as downloading an Al Qaeda training manual and secretly creating ricin, a deadly biological toxin, which he stored in a lunchbox under his bed. Despite these glaring signs of escalating danger, systemic intervention failed, repeatedly describing Axel as lacking a clear political, religious, or ideological motive—criteria required under current regulations for tackling terrorism.
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### The Day Everything Went Horribly Wrong
The tragedy unfolded on July 29, 2023, when Axel, now 18, walked into a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, a small town near his home. Armed with a knife and an intent to kill, he murdered three young girls and injured eight other children and two adults who tried to protect them. His specific motive remains elusive—he refused to provide one in police interviews.
Not only was the sheer horror of the attack shocking, but the aftermath added layers of societal confusion. False claims circulated that he was an Islamist terrorist or an undocumented migrant. In reality, Axel was none of these things. Born to a Christian Rwandan family in Wales, he did not appear to act out of allegiance to any ideology or belief system. As the prosecutor succinctly captured during his trial, “His only purpose was to kill.”
The revelations about Axel’s growing obsession with gore and violence, coupled with a lack of clear ideological alignment, exposed a glaring gap in Britain’s ability to prevent such tragedies. While Axel has now been sentenced to life in prison, the question lingers: How could this happen, and could it have been prevented?
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### A System That Failed
Axel’s case brings to light serious shortcomings in Britain’s counterterrorism strategies, particularly the program known as Prevent. Established in 2003, Prevent aims to identify individuals showing early signs of extremism and intervene before acts of violence can occur. Teachers flagged Axel to Prevent three separate times between the ages of 13 and 14 due to concerns about his interest in violence.
However, Prevent repeatedly closed his case, citing a lack of ideological motive—a requirement to meet their intervention criteria. Prevent’s traditional focus has been on ideologically motivated terrorism, such as Islamist extremism or far-right radicalization, leaving cases like Axel’s—where the person is seemingly motivated by a nebulous obsession with violence—without a clear pathway for intervention.
This is not an isolated incident. Similar shortcomings in Prevent have played out in other cases. For instance:
– In 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old from Plymouth, killed five people, including a three-year-old girl, before turning his gun on himself. Like Axel, David had been flagged to Prevent due to concerns about violence but also didn’t fit the typical ideological mold. Instead, he had been immersed in online forums surrounding “incel” (involuntary celibate) culture, a misogynistic community that frequently glorifies mass violence.
– Cameron Finnigan, a 19-year-old sentenced earlier this month, was found to be part of an online Satanist group with neo-Nazi links. The group used blackmail to force children into filming acts of violence and self-harm, yet Cameron’s behavior also fell through many cracks in the system before he was apprehended.
These failures expose a worrying trend: young people are increasingly drawn into “poisonous online extremism,” often adopting fragmented and incoherent fixations on violence, which existing counterterrorism frameworks struggle to categorize or mitigate.
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### The Growing Threat of “Unclear Ideologies”
MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, has been raising alarms for years about the changing face of extremism. A significant and emerging trend involves individuals who lack a coherent belief system and are instead fueled by a mix of chaotic, unclear grievances. Vicki Evans, a senior national counterterrorism coordinator, describes this group as having “complex fixations with violence and gore, but with no clear ideology other than that fascination.”
Prevent has begun to adjust to this reality, splitting their former catchall category of “mixed, unclear, and unstable ideology” into various subcategories, such as incels or school-shooting obsessives. Yet this hasn’t entirely solved the problem. In the year leading up to March 2024, nearly one in five Prevent referrals still fell into the “unclear” category, reflecting the difficulty of fully comprehending and addressing this growing threat.
The challenge is not unique to Britain. Across the globe, young individuals are using the internet to access and spread extremist content, often blending ideologies or remaining devoid of any cohesive worldview. Gina Vale, a criminologist, notes that for some isolated youth, violence becomes an answer to find belonging or status, or to assert control over the world around them.
A 2024 study of convicted terrorists in England and Wales found that over half had mental illnesses, neurodivergence, or personality disorders, and that the internet played a critical role in radicalization. Axel Rudakubana fits this mold perfectly—a socially isolated teenager whose violent tendencies were fed by unfiltered access to graphic and glorified depictions of murder and torture.
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### Calls for Change
Axel’s case has prompted renewed debate about whether Britain’s terrorism laws need to evolve. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for an inquiry into the country’s counterterrorism system, questioning whether the existing definition of terrorism adequately addresses the new wave of threats. He suggested broadening the scope to include “violence intended to terrorize,” but critics argue this may stretch resources too thin or lead to false positives.
Some experts believe the solution isn’t simply redefining terrorism but creating an entirely new system tailored to individuals like Axel. Jonathan Hall, an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, proposes establishing a specialized capability for handling cases of “noninstrumental extreme violence”—those motivated by the act of violence itself, rather than any political, religious, or ideological goal.
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### A Safer Future?
As Britain debates how to address these emerging issues, it’s important to acknowledge a sobering truth: not every act of violence can be prevented. But that doesn’t mean society shouldn’t strive to do better. Axel’s case has shown that institutional focus on the mental health of young, socially isolated individuals, combined with stricter regulation of online spaces, is crucial.
To make real progress, experts like Tim Squirrell urge authorities to move beyond framing all mass violence as a subset of terrorism. Instead, the focus should be on recognizing it as a distinct societal problem—one that demands greater urgency and more comprehensive solutions.
In the end, Axel Rudakubana’s horrifying actions are a wake-up call. They aren’t just about one deeply troubled young man—they reveal cracks in systems designed to protect society. The question now is whether Britain will act on the lessons learned or wait for the next tragedy to strike.
