The Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza responds to findings from the first phase of the Southport inquiry, released today by Sir Adrian Fulford.
“The findings from today’s inquiry into the terrible events in Southport in summer 2024 are a bleak reminder why the way children’s services work together is so crucial – failure can mean the death of an innocent child. In this case, it was three children: Bebe King, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Elsie Dot Stancombe, and it is their families I am thinking of today.
“Clear opportunities were missed to stop these three little girls being killed. Time and time again we have seen the real life consequences of services and professionals failing to take responsibility for these most complex groups of children like Axel Rudakubana: those with severe mental health conditions, those fixated on violence, or those who do not fit neatly into a category like counter-terror. I am working to understand these cases of children motivated by violence more deeply and what is needed to identify them sooner.
“Each failure like this is as devastating as the last, from the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson in 2020, to Sara Sharif in 2023, to these murders. This inquiry must lead, finally, to the kind of change that I have called for throughout my time as Children’s Commissioner, where services are required to take responsibility, share information and work together to stop the most at-risk children becoming invisible.”
