The second phase of the public inquiry into the 2024 Southport stabbing massacre has opened in London, warning that action must be taken to stop isolated young people spending "endless hours in solitude, relentlessly online" and being drawn towards imitating the killer, Axel Rudakubana. This stage matters because it moves beyond the individual failings that preceded the attack to examine a broader emerging threat: so-called "violence-fixated individuals" who plan extreme violence without a clear ideological motive, making them far harder for authorities to identify.

Rudakubana murdered three young girls — Bebe King, six, Elsie Stancombe, seven, and Alice Aguiar — and injured several others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, after a series of missed opportunities to intervene. Inquiry chairman Sir Adrian Fulford said such offenders often act entirely alone and are motivated by varied, difficult-to-detect impulses. The hearing also heard that deadly "tactical" knives, advertised online as "combat" blades, remain easily available for purchase. Rudakubana was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years.