Retrieving Rudakubana’s internet history could take years, detective says

It could take investigators years to uncover what was in the internet browsing history Axel Rudakubana deleted before he left the house to carry out his attack, the officer in charge of the case has said.

Police discovered a number of devices during a search of the 18-year-old’s home in Banks, Lancashire, after he fatally stabbed Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, at a dance class in Southport on July 29 last year.

Rudakubana cleared his internet history before he left to travel to The Hart Space just after 11am.

A search on social media site X for the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, made minutes before he left home, was the only thing that remained, police have said.

To uncover what Rudakubana had been searching in the days and months before his stabbing spree, detectives needed to go through US companies Microsoft, which owns search engine Bing, and Google, which owns browser Chrome.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Jason Pye said the process to get the information is ongoing, but “could be years”.

If the incident had been classed as a terror attack, he said, the process could have been easier.

He said: “Our case has always been, based on the evidence, it’s not counter-terrorism. There is nothing in terms of ideology.

“So I couldn’t go down that path to try and get that information any quicker.

“There is a process of getting it quicker, but because it’s in the serious organised crime, major crime category, unfortunately I can’t get it as quick as we would like.

“The process of getting that could be years. It could take us years.”

Mr Pye said if there was information pointing towards Rudakubana working with anyone else or being in contact with people in the US, he could have gone down another route.

He said: “Unfortunately I can’t, so I’m just dealt in with the law that we’ve got available to us, just means that, unfortunately, I couldn’t get that in time for the hearing.”

He said there was an ongoing process in the US courts.

According to Google, the police could have applied through the UK courts for an overseas production order under the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (Cloud) Act which, if granted, would have meant the data was produced more quickly.

Merseyside Police said requests had been submitted through the correct channels for a criminal investigation.

A Google spokesman said: “Our deepest sympathies are with all of the families and individuals affected by this horrific attack.

“We are in touch with the Merseyside police to support their inquiries with regards to this case.’’

Microsoft has also been approached for comment.

Officers did uncover more than 164,000 documents which had been downloaded from the internet and stored on Rudakubana’s devices.

Sentencing him on Thursday, Mr Justice Goose said the documents showed he had “a longstanding preoccupation with violent killing and genocide”.

Among them were a range of books, academic papers, leaflets, manuals which related to war, weapons and genocide, including an al Qaida training manual.