Keir Starmer and the police were guilty of a “gigantic cover up” over the Southport murders, Nigel Farage has said, after Axel Rudakubana unexpectedly pleaded guilty today. The Telegraph has more.
After Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murder of three young girls and a terrorist offence on the first day of his trial, the Reform UK leader said the Government had behaved “abominably” from day one.
Mr Farage was prevented from asking questions in Parliament about the background of Rudakubana and whether he was known to the authorities, and said the riots that followed the murders were caused by the withholding of information from the public, rather than the stabbings themselves.
Speaking from Washington D.C., where he is attending the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Mr Farage told the Telegraph that he had been told shortly after the murders that Rudakubana had been expelled from school for possessing a knife at the age of 13.
It led Mr Farage to suspect that he might have been known to the authorities.
He said: “I was pretty certain from what I had been told very early on that this was a terrorist related attack. I wanted to ask questions in Parliament about what the authorities knew about this man, but my rights of Parliamentary privilege were taken away and I was not allowed to say anything, which is extraordinary.
“I wasn’t even allowed to ask any questions in Parliament, and the suggestion that it was because of ongoing court proceedings is completely wrong.
This reflects very badly on the Prime Minister. We have been denied the truth on this by the police and the Government, it is disgraceful.
“There has been a gigantic cover up from day one, the authorities knew very very quickly about his expulsion from school, the ricin making and the Al-Qaeda material, yet they refused to class the murders as terror related for fear of the reaction there might have been.” …
Mr Farage said that in future, the Government needed to “come clean” about such attacks, to avoid the sort of feverish online speculation that swirled in the vacuum of information that followed the stabbings in July last year.
“What really led to the riots was the withholding of information,” he said.
He added that the “culture of fear” that was caused by Sir Keir Starmer’s determination to see people jailed for comments made online meant that people who knew the truth were afraid to come forward and say publicly what had happened.
Responding to news of his guilty pleas on X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: “Axel Rudakubana has pleaded guilty to murder and a terrorism charge.
“Will we ever find out the whole truth?”
Farage added that Reform UK will ask Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to appear in Parliament and account for why Axel Rudakubana’s terror links were not revealed sooner.
The Reform leader said she should apologise and explain why the British public had been “denied the basic truth”.
“I asked that question 24 hours after the murders,” he said.
“I said why are we not being told the truth? Was this man known to the authorities? We were met with a complete wall of silence.
“The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary refused to engage, Liverpool police refused to engage.
“There was nothing about what I asked that would have in any way threatened contempt of court. This is basic background information that the public was entitled to.
“I was accused of stoking and encouraging the riots, when actually the riots were happening because of the vacuum of information and crazy conspiracy theories gaining traction online.”
He added: “I think that the Government are responsible for the most astonishing cover-up. I think that we need an apology from the Home Secretary and an explanation as to why we have been denied the basic truth.”
It’s emerged that Rudakubana was referred to Prevent on more than one occasion.
The first time came in 2019 when teachers became concerned with his obsession with school massacres – at the age of just 13.
It is believed he was referred to Prevent again in 2021 following his expulsion from the Range High School, when staff became concerned about his interest in the terror attacks in London in 2017.
However the referral was not escalated as it was deemed he did not pose a terrorism risk.
The Telegraph also reveals that Rudakubana broke into his former school and tried to attack fellow pupils with a hockey stick after he was expelled for carrying a knife.
Rudakubana was permanently excluded from the Range High School in Formby after he was caught with a blade in the classroom when he was aged 13.
He was sent to a pupil referral unit in Lancashire but returned to his former school armed with a weapon and a “hit list” of students he wanted to attack.
Pupils were locked in their classrooms during the incident and Rudakubana was only prevented from causing serious injury when he was physically tackled to the ground by the Headmaster.
It’s also reported that Rudakubana was stopped from travelling to his former school by his father just a week before he carried out the Southport attack.
On July 22nd, Rudakuban booked a taxi from his home in Banks, Lancashire, to the Range High School in Formby.
He was dressed in the same clothes he would wear on the day of the Southport killings – a green hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head and a surgical mask over his face.
When the taxi arrived at his home however, his father, Alphonse Rudakubana, ran out of the family home and pleaded with the driver not to take him.
An argument ensued but Rudakubana was eventually persuaded to get out of the taxi and go back inside.
Addressing Rudakubana, Mr Justice Goose said he faced an “inevitable” life sentence.
He said: “You have now pleaded guilty to this indictment and to each of the charges upon it.
“You will understand it is inevitable the sentence to be imposed upon you will mean a life sentence equivalent will be imposed upon you.”
He will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday at 11am.
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