The absence of parental control

The absence of parental control

¶15. The response of AR’s parents to AR’s online activity is addressed in full in Chapter 12: AR’s family. For the purposes of this chapter, I note that, through the Prevent Referrals, and their awareness that AR had purchased weapons online, AR’s parents were aware of concerns about AR’s online activity. Moreover, they knew that AR was spending substantial amounts of time online, particularly as he became more isolated and barely attended school from September 2021 onwards. Nevertheless, they failed to place any sort of parameters on AR’s online activity whether through monitoring his use by asking what he was accessing, seeking to view his browsing history or using monitoring software, controlling his use through the use of a firewall or parental controls, or preventing his use by restricting his access to his tablets and laptop. In addition, when they became concerned about AR’s online purchases, it was open to AR’s parents to report this to Amazon, who would have closed AR’s Amazon account on the basis that he was underage.⁵⁹²⁵⁹² T/S: 17/58/11-59/2. Alphonse R stated that he did not put in place any basic measures because he would not have been able to manage AR’s destructive behaviour in response. While I recognise the evidence about AR’s violent outbursts in the home, Alphonse R did not even attempt such measures. In my view, this was a failure to put in place appropriate boundaries on AR and a failure of parental control.⁵⁹³⁵⁹³ T/S: 33/117/6-121/14.

¶16. In addition, for reasons set out in Chapter 8: Prevent and Counter Terrorism Policing, and Chapter 11: Education, AR’s parents failed to support AR’s schools and Prevent when concerns were raised. For example, in relation to the First Prevent Referral and the suggestion that AR had researched school shootings, The Acorns School asked Alphonse R to reinforce to AR that this was not appropriate use of the internet at school. Alphonse R returned the call and put forward AR’s version of events.⁵⁹⁴⁵⁹⁴ T/S: 27/43/13-44/4. Alphonse R does not appear to have contradicted or questioned the same account when it was given by AR to Prevent.⁵⁹⁵⁵⁹⁵ CTPNW000135. In addition, Ms Barrett, senior support worker for LCC, stated that she was told by AR’s parents that they supervised AR’s online use.⁵⁹⁶⁵⁹⁶ T/S: 30/97/11-100/7. If AR’s parents believed that they were unable to implement measures at home for fear of AR’s violence, they ought to have supported the authorities when they questioned AR’s online activity, rather than simply advancing AR’s own excuse or wrongly suggesting that he was supervised. In addition, they could have taken active steps to obtain support in relation to AR’s online activity from those authorities.

¶17. I have no doubt that the parental failure to establish any parameters, and the failure to support others when they were seeking to investigate AR’s online activity, meant that AR was able to pursue his ongoing obsession with violence, and that this obsession was a substantial contributor to AR carrying out the attack.