Home Office report makes recommendations for Prevent

The Home Office has published its ‘Lessons for Prevent’ review yesterday (16th July 2025), which discusses the role of Prevent in the murder of Sir David Amess MP in 2021 and the murders of three young girls in Southport last year by Axel Rudakubana. It was carried out by the interim independent Prevent commissioner Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC.

This was first ordered by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, in January after it was found out that Rudakubana was referred to Prevent, the government’s programme to stop people from becoming terrorists, three times. It is part of the UK’s CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy, and operates across England, Scotland and Wales. The then-17-year-old stabbed three young girls to death at a dance class in Southport in July 2024, and attempted to murder eight other children and two adults.

The report, later, was asked to include the failings of Ali Harbi Ali’s case, who assassinated the MP in a constituency surgery, which has been categorised as a terrorist attack.

The report details that he was referred to Prevent by his school in 2014, and then Channel, which decided to offer him an Intervention Provider. Here, Prevent “functioned well”. But, this was followed by a “long string of failings” which the report described as “the product of poor judgement, poor communication and lack of follow-through.” In Harbi Ali’s initial meeting with his Intervention Provider, he concealed his true believes, and this was not followed by any further meetings that the police had commissioned.

The report says that if these errors had not been made, Prevent would have undoubtedly uncovered the full extent of Harbi Ali’s descent into terrorism, averting his 2021 crime.

The case for Rudakubana is more complicated: he was not sentenced as a terrorist due to a lack of clear ideology, but had been referred to Prevent by his school three times between 2019 and 2021. This saw his school present the police with three opportunities to progress towards Channel, a voluntary and confidential early intervention programme that supports rather than punishes those at risk of terrorism, but none of these were not taken, even though he was already showing an interest in terrorism and disturbed characteristics. He was not even referred for information-gathering, as had been recommended. Anderson believes he should have been.

The report asserts that had these measures been implemented, they would have had the “potential to make a material difference”, and Anderson recommends policy that “violence-fascinated individuals” who had not particularly ideology but may have the potential to commit crimes with similarities to acts of terrorism, should continue to be accommodated within Prevent. 

Anderson also concludes that Prevent would be more effective if “embedded within a comprehensive violence prevention strategy, behind a “big front door””.

Although Prevent remains controversial, Anderson affirms that it has the power to make positive change, although is not always possible.

He then makes ten recommendations around five points: Prevent should apply to those who have no fixed ideology but a fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks; Prevent could function better if formally connected to a broader safeguarding and violence protection system; Prevent needs to adapt to the online world where so much radicalisation takes place; public transparency about the structures, systems and statistics of Prevent should be the default; and information-sharing and engagement should be improved.

On the report, Counter Terrorism Policing’s senior national coordinator for prevent and pursue, deputy assistant commissioner Vicki Evans said: “Counter Terrorism Policing welcomes Lord Anderson’s report and remains committed to understanding the full extent of the circumstances which led to the murders of Sir David Amess MP in 2021, and of innocent children in Southport last year.

“Not only is it the least those affected by these acts of violence deserve, but it is only through this understand that we can identify where the Prevent system can be improved to keep pace with evolving threats and strengthen our protection of the public alongside our partners.

“We are grateful to Lord Anderson for the time he spent speaking to CTP officers and staff directly involved in those cases, and to other colleagues who explained how are have responded to the recommendations of previous reviews.

“We will now carefully reflect on the report and its recommendations, and continue to work alongside the government, security services, wider policing and other partners to ensure that systems designed to keep the public safe from harm do exactly that.”