1 dzień temu
Yvette Cooper has pledged to change the law to treat people fixated on violence as seriously as terrorists following last year's Southport attack. The Home Secretary said she would address a "gap in the law" against planning mass casualty attacks that had no ideological basis.
Cooper said such attacks could be "just as serious" as terrorism in their impact. She told the BBC: "We have to make sure that the system is able to respond to violent fixated individuals. We will tighten that legislation so that that is taken as seriously as terrorism."
Independent review recommendation
Her commitment would implement a recommendation from the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC. Hall examined whether terror laws needed to be changed to deal with people such as Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana.
The review was prompted by revelations that Rudakubana had been referred to the counter-extremism Prevent programme. However, his case had not been followed up as he lacked an ideological motivation.
Southport attack details
Rudakubana went on to murder three young girls and seriously wound 10 other people at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last year. He is currently serving a life sentence for the attack.
Hall's review recommended against widening the definition of terrorism to include individuals such as Rudakubana. Instead, he suggested creating a new offence to deal with people who plan mass casualty attacks motivated by personal grievance or an obsession with violence for its own sake.
Online radicalisation concerns
Cooper said there was now a "pattern" of teenagers being "drawn into extreme violence and extreme ideologies" in their own bedrooms. She blamed "a really distorted and warped online world" for this trend.
The Home Secretary explained: "The sorts of things that we're now increasingly seeing online with violent fixated individuals, where there may not be a clear ideology, it may be a fixation with violence, or they may switch between different ideologies."
(PA/London) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
