‘My son was radicalised online when he was 14. I was too scared to tell the police’

Axel Rudakubana was 17 when he murdered three young girls in Southport back in July 2024. The horrific attack came after years of Rudakubana watching extreme and violent content online, without any supervision.

A new report from the Southport Inquiry now suggests that the tragedy could have been prevented if his parents had shared all their concerns with authorities, as well as pointing out numerous missed opportunities for intervention from agencies, including the decision to reject him from the anti-terror and deradicalisation programme Prevent.

His mother told the hearing: “There are many things that Alphonse and I wish we had done differently, anything that might have prevented the horrific event of July 29 2024. (For) our failure, we are profoundly sorry.”

The report has sparked conversations about what parents should do if they notice signs of their children being radicalised online. Below, one mother, Sarah, shares her story of how she discovered her son John had been watching extremist content online from the age of 14, and her painful struggle in trying to work out what to do.

My son was radicalised online when he was just shy of his 15th birthday – but I had no idea. His friend showed him a meme on his phone of soldiers living on the streets because immigrants had taken all the houses. My son blindly believed it, and because we had a family member with mental health issues after being in the military, it infuriated him. It felt personal.

He was invited to join a far-right forum by a friend, and from there, it quickly spread. He joined more and more platforms, and his consumption of propaganda grew. I didn’t know what he was watching, but I could see changes in his behaviour.

John* was always a lovely boy to be around – happy-go-lucky, fun, loving and kind – but he quickly became unrecognisable. He was argumentative, disrespectful and started calling me “stupid”, “thick” and telling me to “get back into the kitchen”. Looking back, I should have seen that as a warning sign to the kind of content he was consuming, but I didn’t think. I was just so confused.

I’d never had contact with his school before, beyond the obligatory parents’ evenings, but now it felt like I was on speed-dial. His grades were slipping, he was giving backchat to teachers, and he was disruptive. We all knew something was wrong, but we had no idea what. People said to me, look, Sarah, he’s a teenager, it’s just a phase. But it didn’t pass. Instead, it got worse over the next 18 months.

Our relationship fell apart – the way he spoke to me was atrocious. I had no idea what to do. Family and friends would try to speak to him for me, but he’d turn on them with the same verbal abuse. People started to see him as a write-off, a problem and a bad lad. I didn’t understand what was wrong because he wasn’t going out and drinking or getting in fights – he was always at home alone in his room on his computer.

I thought that meant he was safe, but I was wrong. He was consuming far-right, extremist content online, and I had no idea. I didn’t know what I should be looking out for. At school, we were warned about signs of sexual exploitation, bullying, gangs, alcohol and knife crime. Those were the alarm bells. Nobody spoke about radicalisation. All I knew about it was what I’d seen on the news. Not once did I think it could ever happen on my own doorstep.

John was 17 when I found out what he was up to. He came home after being out at a sporting event and confessed he’d actually been to a demonstration, and the police had picked him up. He wouldn’t reveal any more – and had only shared what he did because he was underage and the police had taken his details, so he thought they’d show up on our doorstep.

A few weeks later, he wanted to go to another one. I spoke to my partner and we decided the only way we’d find out what was going on was if we offered him a lift to the next one. It was so far away that he agreed. When we got there, I saw him walk up to a group of people who were respectfully dressed and I thought, maybe I’m overthinking things. Five minutes later, that went out of the window.

I saw my son, who’d always been so inclusive and caring, doing the one thing he’d always been so against: marching and singing racist slurs. It was a huge shock and soul-destroying to see, but the penny dropped then. On the way home, he was proud of what he’d done. I tried to say that I understood he was against grooming – everyone is – but it’s got nothing to do with race or religion. He argued with me, and from then on, things got so much worse.

John stopped hiding his views and shared them all publicly. The things he wrote on social media were atrocious. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about going to the police, but I worried it would make things worse. If they spoke to him and failed, he might get worse – and he’d know it was me. What if he left home and I lost him forever?

I thought about going to his teachers too, but he was hanging by a shoestring, and I worried they’d expel him. Then his education would be over, and he’d have no chance. I was so scared of doing the wrong thing and making it worse that in the end, I did nothing at all.

I was lucky because one of John’s teachers contacted me – she’d witnessed him expressing his views, and after talking to him, she called me. I was terrified, but I knew I had to validate her concerns. I told her the truth, even though it was mortifying, and I had no idea what would happen next. I just knew that something had to happen.

He still won’t tell me about some of that content he saw online because it was just too horrific

That was the best thing that could have happened, because John got help. He was passed to Prevent, the UK’s government-led, multi-agency programme designed to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It focuses on early intervention to support vulnerable people susceptible to radicalisation, and John was given an intervention provider – a specialist support worker who came to help him with the deradicalisation process.

At first, John only agreed to meet him so he could feed back the information to his far-right groups. But he really hit it off with the intervention provider, and he decided to really listen to what he had to say. The turning point was when John told him his interpretation of passages from the Quran. The support worker didn’t counter him like I used to – he just told John to download a translator, put the passages in there and report back. That was when John realised he’d been misinformed about the meaning of the Islamic religious text.

It planted a seed of doubt that he’d been lied to. He did more research with his support worker, and within five weeks, John had deleted his social media platforms and disengaged from the online groups. That happened very quickly, but it took a long time for him to recover and get his life back.

He had to rebuild relationships with friends he’d lost during his radicalisation, and it took months to see the old John come through again. He had support throughout – when his one-to-ones finished, he had weekly check-ins, then monthly, then once every few months. They never walked away from him.

It took us years to repair our relationship, but now that he’s in his late twenties, we’re great. John is not his old self, but his improved self. He’s seen things no child or teen should ever see, and he’s had to forgive himself more than anything. He still won’t tell me about some of that content he saw online because it was just too horrific. But he’s using what he’s been through to educate others.

He now works for Small Steps, a charity offering education and training about the dangers of radicalisation. I’m so proud of him; to see him go full circle and own his mistakes as he has. He’s my inspiration, and I now work for Exit Hate, a charity offering support to individuals leaving extremism as well as their families. I want to make sure no families ever feel as alone and isolated as I did during that time, and that they know it’s never too late – you can always get help.

As told to Radhika Sanghani

*Name has been changed

If you are worried about someone at risk of radicalisation and need advice, call Act Early on 0800 011 3764 or visit Exit Hate for more information