It was shortly before Axel Rudakubana left the house that his mother is thought to have found the discarded packaging for a knife.

His parents already knew that their 17-year-old son was ordering weapons by post; that he was watching graphic online footage of atrocities and had previously attacked a boy against whom he had a grievance. At home, his behaviour was so threatening that his own family walked on eggshells. But even though the only times their reclusive son had voluntarily left the house in the previous two years were with violence in mind, they still didn’t call the police when they realised he was gone.

Tellingly, when news began filtering out that afternoon of something terrible happening in their town, the first thought of Axel’s father, Alphonse, was whether his son might be involved. But by then, it was too late. Three little girls would never come home from their summer holiday dance workshop, and the survivors’ lives would be changed beyond recognition by what they saw. And so, in a different way, would those of the Rudakubana family.

This week, the judge leading the public inquiry into the 2024 murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe in Southport concluded that lives could have been saved, had some of the many adults engaged with Rudakubana acted differently. What distinguishes his report from so many sadly similar homicide reviews before it is the uncompromising addition of his parents to the list of professionals deemed to have failed.

Judge Sir Adrian Fulford acknowledged that Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire faced huge challenges as the parents of two autistic sons – the elder of good character but suffering from a neuromuscular disorder. Demonising them, he argued, would not help. (Some hope, in this political climate: Reform UK’s Robert........

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