Jonathan Hall KC warned against expanding the definition of terrorism, instead calling for a new criminal offence targeting loners who plot mass killings like Axel Rudakubana and Nicholas Prosper
A new law should tackle loners planning mass killings in the wake of the Southport murders, a terrorism watchdog says today.
Jonathan Hall KC warned against widening the definition of terrorism – saying it would increase the risk of anti-terror legislation being abused. In a report commissioned after Axel Rudakubana’s sickening murders of three young girls, Mr Hall said there is a “real and not theoretical gap” for lone individuals who plan mass killings.
He pointed to the case of Nicholas Prosper, 19, who murdered his mother and two siblings and planned a mass shooting at his old primary school. Despite police discovering a loaded shotgun and more than 30 cartridges, there was no specific offence that he could be charged with for planning the school shooting last year.
Mr Hall warned there is a danger that mass killings could start a copycat craze. He was tasked with examining terror legislation by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper “in light of modern threats we face”.
It came after Keir Starmer warned of a new threat from “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms” following the Southport murders. Rudakubana stabbed Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, to death and tried to kill eight other children and two adults.
His attack was not treated as terrorism because there was no evidence he was motivated by ideology. But Mr Hall cautioned against widening the definition of terrorism, saying it is “already wide”, and expanding it would “increase the possibility of inaccurate use and, in theory, abuse”.
He went on: “It would risk major false positives – the prosecution of people who by no stretch of the imagination are terrorists – and extend terrorism liability into novel terrain.”
The move would also result in “unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression”, he said.