Southport killer Axel Rudakubana is understood to have researched car bombs, detonators and nitric acid as his fascination with violence flourished unchecked online.
Searches of his devices have revealed an obsession with massacres, torture and a wide range of brutal conflicts, including the genocide in Rwanda, where his parents are from.
Written material discovered by police after his knife rampage, which saw three girls murdered, also reportedly included documents on Nazi Germany, clan cleansing in Somalia, an uprising in Kenya and a treatise on combat in Chechnya.
The 18-year-old is also believed to have had a cache of weapons stashed at his home, including a machete, scabbard, arrows, castor beans and a 20cm kitchen knife identical to one used in the rampage.
Before he left in a taxi to launch his attack on unsuspecting children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Merseyside on 29 July last year, it is understood he searched social media for the Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing, when a bishop and five others were attacked in a Sydney church in April 2024.
Officers also discovered a Tupperware container under his bed containing an unknown substance, which was later found to be homemade biological toxin ricin.
One PDF file entitled “Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual” resulted in him being charged with a terror offence.
Although the documents show a clear fascination with extreme violence, the attack has not been classed as terrorism because police can find no evidence he subscribed to any particular ideology or religion.
Details of his fixation emerged after the prime minister, who has announced a public inquiry into the atrocity, warned Britain is facing a new threat from “young men in their bedrooms” accessing radical materials online.
Laying the groundwork for an overhaul of terrorism laws to guard against the new threat of “loners and misfits” driven to acts of extreme violence, Sir Keir Starmer said: “Terrorism has changed. In the past, the predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent. Groups like al-Qaeda.
“That threat of course remains. But now, alongside that we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety.”
However security experts have warned against expanding terror laws to encompass atrocities carried out by lone attackers.
Neil Basu, a former national head of counter-terrorism, told LBC it would be a “mistake” to label something as “terrorism if it is not terrorism”, as this could lead some to seek out a “day of infamy”.
He added: “I would be wary of expanding terrorism law to cover lone actors… that isn’t what terrorism law is about, but it would be for politicians to debate whether the law needs to be expanded.”
Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior Home Office official, meanwhile told The Times newspaper that people “who are mobilised by hatred and contempt for others into committing lone wolf attacks” have been “with us for years”.
The government has also promised to crack down on online retailers after it emerged the then 17-year-old Rudakubana purchased his weapon on Amazon.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs it is a “total disgrace” that Rudakubana, who had admitted to carrying a knife ten times, was able to buy a weapon online and promised new measures in the Crime and Policing Bill this spring.
Writing in The Sun, Sir Keir said: “It remains shockingly easy for our children to get their hands on deadly knives. The lessons of this case could not be clearer.
“Time and again, as a child, the Southport murderer carried knives. Time and again, he showed clear intent to use them.
“And yet, tragically, he was still able to order the murder weapon off of the internet without any checks or barriers. A two-click killer. This cannot continue.”
Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday to 16 offences, including three counts of murder, ten of attempted murder, producing the deadly poison ricin and possession of a document which contained al-Qaeda training material.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine; Bebe King, six; and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; died following the attack at the dance class in The Hart Space.
He is due to be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday.
