Southport: were we misled?

Axel Rudakubana is entitled to due process – but the fresh charges laid against him pose some serious questions for the authorities

Photo: The Emperor of Byzantium / Wikimedia Commons

I am a passionate believer in the presumption of innocence. This ancient and fundamental principle must, in a civilised society, be upheld for all who are accused by the state of having committed a criminal offence – including in cases which seem cut and dried.

Even someone standing, gun in hand, over the bullet-ridden body of a known enemy is entitled to due process – including the right to a defence and a fair trial – before the rest of us judge him to be guilty. After all, history shows us that, when it comes to alleged criminal acts, what may have appeared obvious at the time can end up being a false picture. Sometimes, defendants accused of the worst crime of all – murder – are acquitted. Or the charge may be reduced to manslaughter (by reason, for example, of diminished responsibility). Or other facts may come to light which provide us with an entirely different perspective of events.

The point is that, short of a confession, no defendant should ever be treated as guilty unless or until a court of law has, after a full examination of all the evidence, declared him to be so. The alternative means vigilantism and mob justice.

Many people are certain that they know exactly what happened in Southport on 29 July this year when three young girls were slain in cold blood. Their instincts may well prove to be correct. But even for Axel Rudakubana, who has been charged with the murders, the universal principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ must not be displaced. And those claiming otherwise – on the grounds, for example, that Rudakubana was ‘caught in the act’ – are completely missing the point. It is for a jury of Rudakubana’s peers – not voices on social media, or anywhere else – to determine those sorts of questions.

All of that said, the development yesterday that Rudakubana now faces additional charges of having produced a biological toxin and possessed an al-Qaida training manual deserve comment, not least because it raises some urgent - and very serious - questions about the manner in which the affair has been handled by the authorities and, in particular, whether those authorities have been as transparent with the public as they might have been or whether a degree of manipulation has been going on.