Cooper urges action over killings fuelled by fixation with extreme violence

Stronger action must be taken to stop killers who become obsessed with violence while viewing extreme content online, the Home Secretary has said.

Nicholas Prosper withdrew from school work and his family after his GCSEs in 2022 and retreated into an isolated life spending more and more time online.

He became fixated with school shootings, and while he interacted with others in chatrooms online, he stopped engaging with the real world, leaving school in March 2023 after failing to study for A-levels and later being sacked from a supermarket job.

After Prosper was sentenced on Wednesday, Yvette Cooper said: “What we have seen again in this case again is senseless killings fuelled purely by a disturbing fixation with violence and obsessive brutality.

“This terrible case has exposed deep and longstanding weaknesses in private firearms sales, and we are urgently looking at how we can tighten these controls.

“But it also shows an urgent need to look at the very disturbing way some young people are becoming fixated with extreme violent material online and the real dangers to our communities as a result.

“From tech companies to law enforcement to schools, and right across society, stronger recognition of the nature of this threat is needed, and stronger action to prevent this kind of terrible violence.

“This Government will not shy away from taking the actions that are needed to keep communities safe.”

Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana had also searched for violent material online before he murdered three girls and injured eight other children and two adults at a dance class last summer.

He looked for information linked to school shootings and terror attacks and was referred to the Government anti-extremism programme Prevent three times at the ages of just 13 and 14.

Rudakubana had stopped engaging with mental health workers and also spent several months plotting an atrocity.