Southport inquiry live: Impact statements to be heard from survivors' families
Speaking on the first day of the inquiry, chair Sir Adrian Fulford said there was a "wholesale and general failure" to address the risks posed by Axel Rudakubana before the Southport attack, which he called "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history".
In his opening statement at Liverpool Town Hall, Sir Adrian told a council chamber packed with legal representatives, lawyers, the media and the public that "ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what [Rudakubana] did".
"None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice. There are no words that adequately describe what occurred and I am not going to try, and then fail, to find them."
Sir Adrian said the teenager's "known predilection for knife crime" suggests it was "far from an unforeseeable catastrophic event".
The former vice president of the Court of Appeal said Rudakubana's actions "impose the heaviest of burdens" to investigate how it was possible for him to cause "such devastation".
The public inquiry, split into two phases, will look into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.
Rudakubana had been referred to the government's anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders, including over research into school shootings and the London Bridge terror attack.
He had also accessed online material about explosives, warfare, knives, assassination and an al Qaeda training manual.
Sir Adrian said Rudakubana's "unhindered" ability to access "gravely violent material" on the internet speaks to a "wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed".
He said he aims to make recommendations to ensure the best chance of stopping others "who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way".
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- The Independent
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