Mum of sisters murdered by stranger in park makes key demand to save lives

Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered in 2020, called on ministers to set up a new agency targeting toxic masculinity

The heartbroken mum of two women murdered by a dangerous stranger in a park has demanded tougher action tackling “toxic masculinity”.

Mina Smallman, mother of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, said the Government must set up a law enforcement agency specifically to look at violent misogyny. Bibaa and Nicole were murdered in June 2020 by 18-year-old Danyal Hussein, who had previously been monitored by the Prevent programme, which targets extremism.

Ms Smallman told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the Government must do more to stop young men being radicalised and carrying out horrific acts of violence.

She said: “You need another agency that looks entirely at the radicalisation of young men, toxic masculinity. Also we need to address the dark web.”

Women’s safety campaigner Ms Smallman said: “I think they need to be more nimble to be flexible to because things are moving so quickly in terms of radicalisation of our young men, that we need to catch them before they fall.”

Ms Smallman said: “If you consider that it costs about £125,000 per year to incarcerate a youth. Why aren’t we investing some of that money in educating in schools and putting youth programs together, giving purpose to our young people?

“They’re fodder for the crime scene, from being induced to join gangs, they’re being induced to be groomed in their bedrooms online. We need to do something about this.”

Her daughter’s killer had been active on Satanic internet forums before the attack. Police discovered he had drawn up a contract with a demon, signed in his own blood, saying he would murder six women every six months in return for financial reward.

He had been monitored by Prevent in 2017 and 2018 after accessing far-right material on a school computer. Hussein preyed on the sisters as they celebrated Bibaa’s birthday in Fryent Country Park in North London while Covid restrictions banned indoor gatherings.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Southport murders by teenager Axel Rudakubana has exposed “networks of failure” in monitoring of violent individuals. She said: “There isn’t a clear structure for responsibility for whose responsibility it should be. There’s a network of different organisations who all have a partial responsibility.”

The Government frontbencher said: “I think the system needs to be strengthened because where there’s an issue, for example, where we know there’s a clear ideology involved, that you have somebody where there’s clear evidence of Islamist extremism, for example, we have the Prevent programme and also counter-terrorism police.

“If you have somebody who is demonstrating other kinds of obsession with extreme violence, actually the impact of what they do may be terrorising in exactly the same way.”

She said a review is being carried on the effectiveness of the Prevent system to look at how it can deal with violent extremism where there is no clear idology. ” Ms Cooper added: “My strong view is that the system is not strong enough.”

She pointed to youth prevention partnerships as a measure the new Government is taking to target at-risk youngsters, but said further proposals would be put forward as lessons from Southport are learned.