UK inquiry to seek answers over Southport girls' murders

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) -A public inquiry into the murders of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Britain last year opened on Tuesday, with the chair saying it must find answers for the victims' families and help to prevent any similar atrocity.

Teenager Axel Rudakubana, who was obsessed with violence and genocide, launched the knife attack at the summer vacation event in northern England last July, killing the girls and wounding another 10. 

The incident shocked the nation and was followed by days of nationwide rioting.

Just 17 at the time of the attack, Rudakubana was jailed in January for at least 52 years after he admitted the offences just as his trial was about to start. Prosecutors said his motive was not clear and it appeared to be simply the desire to commit mass murder. 

After the conviction, Prime Minister Keir Starmer ordered the inquiry into state failings as it emerged in the trial that Rudakubana had been referred to a counter-radicalisation scheme three times, but no action had been taken.

Rudakubana had been involved in previous troubling incidents where he had been arrested carrying a knife, whilst he had purchased other weapons including machetes as well as ingredients to make Molotov cocktails. He also had an Al-Qaeda training manual and had produced the lethal poison ricin. 

"As the government at the highest levels has recognised, the perpetrator is responsible for one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history," said the inquiry chair, Adrian Fulford, who added that the killer's name would not be used out of sensitivity for the victims' families.

The inquiry will begin by looking at the teenager's history and repeated prior involvement with public bodies, such as the police, social services and mental health services, before a second phase examines the wider issue of children being drawn into violence, an increasing concern for British authorities.

"We need to understand what went wrong and thereafter to identify and implement the most effective measures to ensure, to the extent that we are able, that there is no repetition," Fulford said.

Lawyers for the three murdered girls - Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine - said they hoped it would uncover the truth.

"We know that nothing the inquiry reveals, or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again," they said in a statement.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Heavens)