Southport killings: Terror chief in plea about online content

Rudakubana was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison on Thursday, where the judge said he planned to kill as many people as he could.

Mr Justice Goose said Rudakubana’s actions did not “meet the definition of an act of terrorism within the meaning of the legislation”, but said his culpability was “equivalent in its seriousness to terrorist murders”.

Earlier this week Sir Keir said there was a “new threat” of “extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms”.

In a wide ranging interview before the prime minister’s announcement, Ms Gunney said violent material on the internet was contributing to “self-initiated terrorism”.

“The risk of somebody becoming a self-initiated terrorist, so actually just taking that material and making their own minds up about something, and going out and committing action that isn’t organised or co-ordinated by a wider group of people – that’s probably one of the biggest risks we’ve got in the UK at the moment,” Ms Gunney added.

She said the ideology of some perpetrators now “isn’t particularly clear”.

The prime minister said the law could be changed “to recognise this new and dangerous threat”.