Failure to oversee and intervene in AR’s online behaviour

¶31. Following the attack, Merseyside Police’s criminal investigation gained considerable (though far from complete) insight into AR’s online behaviour.⁴⁰⁴⁰ T/S: 10/107/17-134/13, T/S: 11/1/5-25/21. As well as having twice downloaded an academic article that contained the text of an Al-Qaeda training manual, AR had downloaded a wide range of vile and disturbing imagery, as well as articles and papers relating to a variety of conflicts and atrocities, both contemporary and historical.

¶32. Although there is no evidence that this level of acutely inappropriate (and, on occasion, unlawful) online activity by AR was known to any agency prior to the attack, there is a direct line back from it to reports of AR’s online behaviour between 2019 and 2021. At these earlier stages, AR was known to have searched his school computer for school shootings, he had asked about access to pictures of weapons or severed heads, and he had searched for information about terrorist attacks and global conflicts. Save for The Acorns School, this concerning aspect of his behaviour was never properly appreciated by any agency or by AR’s parents. Although it formed the basis of the three Prevent referrals made by The Acorns School, CTPNW did not deem AR vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism and all the referrals were closed (a topic which is addressed more generally below).

¶33. There had been an earlier investigation of AR’s electronic devices following his arrest in December 2019. However, it was inconclusive. As a result of ineffective liaison between Merseyside Police and CTPNW, only very limited search terms were used on AR’s devices. While it cannot now be determined whether other searches might have revealed material of concern, AR’s known online activity makes that a serious possibility. This failure illustrates the cumulatively scant regard that was paid to the risks arising from AR’s online behaviour.

¶34. Consistent with this, the record of searches by AR on The Acorns School’s own computers, which was held by The Acorns School for 15 November 2019 only, was never provided to any police force until after the attack. Nor was it adequately chased by CTPNW in the course of the First (or either subsequent) Referral to Prevent. The detailed circumstances of that are set out in Chapter 8: Prevent and Counter Terrorism Policing, and Chapter 11: Education, but proper analysis of that material would have revealed not only that AR accessed a news article about a school shooting, but also his preoccupation with graphic ‘degloving’ injuries. It would also have revealed that AR had been lying when he had made the self-serving assertions that he only accessed the same material as other students, or that he simply followed links sent to him by other students.

¶35. The Acorns School’s concerns about AR’s online behaviour were known to LCC, but any exploration of AR’s online behaviour by LCC was highly limited and ineffectual, amounting to little more than asking AR whether he was aware of the need to remain safe on the internet. Over time, the earlier concerns about AR’s online behaviour receded when all of those dealing with him should have remained vigilant and concerned. Matters that, when taken together with those earlier concerns, would have constituted obvious red flags were treated as isolated incidents which did not in and of themselves indicate any risk.

¶36. Although there are difficulties over the statutory powers available to agencies to oversee and monitor online behaviour by children, there would have been options and interventions available. One obvious opportunity was as part of AR’s referral order, but others would have included when AR told LCC family support workers in October 2021 that he was earning money online but refused to tell them how and, in the same meeting, set out a range of concerning political views; similarly, following the bus incident on 17 March 2022 (when AR threatened to cause serious harm as a result of his own social media usage).⁴¹⁴¹ LCC002311/42 (the Transcript refers to LCC002302 but LCC002311 is a better version of the same document); LANC000082. Generally, there was a lack of curiosity as to how AR was spending his time, in circumstances when it was well-known that he was attending education at best fitfully and at worst not at all, had no constructive employment, and was not leaving the home address. Remarkably, for the entirety of the period 2019 to 2024, when AR was aged 13 to 17, AR’s parents did not even have the precaution of online parental controls set at the home address. More remarkably still, this seems to have gone unnoticed (and certainly unchallenged) by all the agencies dealing with AR.

¶37. I have no hesitation in concluding that the degrading, violent and misogynistic material which AR was viewing online contributed to – and ‘fed’ – his already unhealthy fascination with violence. It also led him to build an arsenal of weapons, and to prepare a chemical and biological weapon in ricin, through online purchases.

¶38. The lack of exploration of, or engagement with, AR’s online life was a significant failing that hampered agencies from identifying and addressing the risk AR posed to others. In the digital online age, it should be self-evident that how someone is behaving online, and what they are seeking out or exposed to, can be both a powerful influence and an effective predictor for how they are likely to behave offline. The opportunity that this poses to gain greater understanding of risk should therefore be plain. Equally self-evident is the proposition that simple self-reporting may not amount to adequate exploration of that opportunity.

¶39. The failure, by multiple agencies, to appreciate these obvious matters meant that a crucial perspective on AR’s thinking was never properly explored despite opportunities for that to occur.