Children referred to the Prevent programme

The devastating murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, and the suffering faced by all the girls who survived the attack in Southport in 2024, will never leave me. I think about the victims, their loved ones, a town coming to terms with the trauma.

But I also think about services which should have identified the risk and intervened to stop it but didn’t. Since that dreadful attack we have learnt more about the failings of those services but also of a wider problem. There is a group of children – those who are radicalised but are fixated on violence without a clear ideology – that the system we have created to protect us all from terror doesn’t work for. That keeps me awake at night.

I want to be clear; we need a Prevent programme to identify and support children and adults at risk of radicalisation into terror. But I share policing’s deep concerns about this group. Young people becoming obsessed with violence, radicalised in an online world that many policymakers know little about.

A national independent inquiry into Southport is underway. Phase 1 explored the failings in that individual case. Now Phase 2 is broadening out to examine how systems need to change to prevent similar atrocities.

Over the last few months, I have used my data powers to gather information about children referred to Prevent and spoken to the frontline. This report aims to inform that inquiry, as well as making recommendations directly to government.

What I have found has shocked me.

Since it was established Prevent has seen a substantial rise in referrals for children, growing from under 3,000 a year in 2016 to over 4,700 last year. More than half of all referrals last year were for children.

The majority of those, almost three quarters of referrals for children in 2024-25, were not about radicalisation in the way we traditionally think – being a right wing, left wing, or Islamist extremist. They were where children had no clear ideology identified in the referral, but many had a fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks.

These terms can distract from the seriousness of what we’re talking about. So, let me give some examples. This group of children might be frequently talking about weapons, idolising ‘famous’ attackers, or sharing videos of violence (such as beheadings or suicides). They may be sharing extreme pornography with peers, encouraging others to join dangerous online communities or to self-harm.

I was a teacher and a headteacher for many years. When a school is confronted with a child like this, they are incredibly concerned. They raise the alarm with a referral to Prevent. Services should spring into action; a joined-up approach to keep both the child and the community safe.

Yet, too often, that’s not what happens.

What I have found is that often when they are referred to Prevent, it is assessed that they do not fit the Prevent parameters for support, and professionals are left unclear about where they should seek help instead.

The majority of these children referred into Prevent do not actually progress to receive an intervention and are often referred back to exactly the organisation that referred them, most often an education setting.

Here we have a system holding a great deal of worry about a group of children, seeking somewhere for them to get help, or someone to hold responsibility for them, and not finding it. Children referred in, then referred out. That is not good enough – and the failures in the system have tragic consequences.

Terrorism is mercifully rare, but troubled children with complex problems are sadly common. A referral to Prevent is not taken lightly. There are 12.5 million children in England and Wales and fewer than 5,000 of them are referred to Prevent each year. It is a drastic plea for help from the people that often know these children best. But too often those pleas are going unanswered. Most children’s cases are not being discussed let alone progressed to receiving multi-agency support.

It is clear that we have a cohort of children becoming intoxicated by extremism, radicalisation or a desire to harm others, who need interventions that Prevent is not able to provide. A merry-go-round of referral and inaction.

We have to change our approach to violence-fixated young people. My central recommendation is that referrals which currently go to Prevent should go through a local multi-agency safeguarding team – which should include Counter Terrorism Policing where needed. At which point children could be routed towards Prevent interventions or other appropriate safeguarding responses. More of these children need specialist intervention.

When Prevent isn’t the right place for them, Government must set out what they should be offered instead – and all professionals should be clear who is responsible for delivering this.

As the second part of the Southport inquiries begins, I hope we can come together to learn lessons and make the changes needed to help prevent more atrocities.