Southport killer should spend whole life in prison, says murdered MP’s daughter
Katie Amess repeated her calls for an inquiry into the Prevent programme that failed to stop her father’s killer or Axel Rudakubana.
The public should have a guarantee that killers such as Axel Rudakubana will spend the rest of their lives in prison, the daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has said.
Rudakubana, who will be sentenced today for the murders of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, is not expected to receive a whole-life order as he was under 18 when he carried out the attack last summer.
He will receive a life sentence, and former police chief Sir Peter Fahy suggested it was “likely” he would never be released even after the end of the minimum term set by the judge.
But speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Katie Amess – whose father’s murderer Ali Harbi Ali did receive a whole-life sentence – said this was not good enough.
She said: “There shouldn’t be a likeliness of the man spending the rest of his life in prison, there should be a guarantee that he should never, ever walk free because we can’t have people like that being released.
“And what kind of message does it send to anybody else that might be thinking of doing something and then not have to spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
Whole-life orders can normally only be imposed on criminals aged 21 and over, but can be considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.
However, although Rudakubana is now 18, he does not fall into this category as he was 17 when he committed his offences.
On Thursday, Ms Amess also repeated her calls for an inquiry into the Government’s counter-extremism Prevent programme, saying the parallels with her father’s case were “stomach-turning”.
Both Rudakubana and Ali, who stabbed Southend MP Sir David to death at a constituency surgery in 2021, had been referred to Prevent.
In Rudakubana’s case, those referrals were closed due to his apparent lack of a clear ideology.
Ms Amess said Prevent was not “foiling any terrorist attacks, it is allowing people to commit these crimes”.
She added: “I have been pushing and pushing and pushing for an inquiry from the Conservative government and from, now, the Labour Government.
“I tried to take the Government to court, I tried to take the police to court, and every door that I knock on is slammed in my face. Nobody wants to take accountability, nobody wants to delve into what happened and try and figure out how we can stop it.”
Following Rudakubana’s guilty pleas on Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a review of the Prevent programme to be led by the former terror watchdog, Lord David Anderson KC.
Speaking in the Commons, Ms Cooper said Lord Anderson will start work “immediately”, adding: “His first task will be to conduct a thorough review of the Prevent history in this case to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed, particularly when there is mixed and unclear ideology.”
Meanwhile, the Home Office will look at the thresholds used for Prevent referrals to see how violent behaviour can be “urgently” addressed.
It comes after officials in the department spent the summer investigating Rudakubana’s Prevent referrals and found, “given his age and complex needs”, they should not have been closed.
