Reading terror deaths the result of ‘multiple failings’

Former child soldier’s murder of three people was probably avoidable, inquest concludes

The deaths of the Reading terror attack victims at the hands of Khairi Saadallah were “probably avoidable” and contributed to by the failings of multiple agencies including Counter Terror Police, a coroner has said.

James Furlong, Dr David Wails and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett were murdered by former child soldier and asylum seeker Saadallah on June 20 2020 in Forbury Gardens, Reading.

Three people – Stephen Young, Patrick Edwards and Nishit Nisudan – were injured before Saadallah threw away the 8in (20cm) knife and ran off, being chased by an off-duty police officer.

Since arriving in Britain from Libya in 2012, Saadallah was convicted of various offences including theft and assault.

Judge Coroner Sir Adrian Fulford said the deaths “probably would have been avoidable” if the mental health service had given “greater priority to stabilising KS and securing access to long-term psychological therapy”.

He added that if his “extremist risk had been better analysed”, Saadallah would probably have been recalled to custody the day before the attacks.

Judge Coroner Fulford said the deaths of the three men were “contributed to by the failings of multiple agencies”. Furlong’s father, Gary, speaking to

The Telegraph after the six-week-long inquest, accused government agencies of ignoring warnings that his son’s killer was likely to carry out a “lone wolf ” terror attack.

Mr Furlong said the authorities had been focused on Saadallah’s mental health issues rather than accepting he was a terror threat.

He said: “He should never have been allowed into the country. He was committing crimes from his first year of being here.” Mr Furlong said that by the fifth week of proceedings he was “demoralised”. He said: “The biggest concern I had was listening to some of the people who are operating within these agencies and seeing they are just not up to the job.

“Definitely Prevent and Counter Terror Police (CTP) were the worst... I think it was basically laziness, they didn’t want to deal with the issues.”

Multi-agency public protection arrangements, known as MAPPA, were set up by the Government to manage violent offenders.

Mr Furlong said: “What counter terror police were doing was taking probation reports and mental health reports, from those meetings and basically ignoring all the issues around his radicalisation and his talk of terrorism and were focusing on the mental health issues to justify them dropping the case.” A probation officer responsible for Saadallah told the inquest she was unknowingly “managing an unconvicted murderer”.

Laura Rixon cried during her evidence after being told Saadallah had killed people and thrown explosives into government premises while fighting in Libya.

She told the inquest she had no knowledge of Saadallah ever “fighting” in Libya and managed him on the belief, from the information she had, that he had mixed ideologies, was not a national security threat and that his risk of extremism was low.

She said she was told by Thames Valley Counter Terrorism Police shortly after taking the case that Saadallah displayed a “lack of ideology” and was not in their view a national security threat.

Andrew Wails, brother of Dr Wails, said UK state agencies had “catastrophically failed” in their duty to protect the public from Saadallah.

“As a family we have many questions and concerns about what various state agencies knew or ought to have known about this terrorist before he carried out his attack, and whether they could have done something to prevent it, he said, outside the Old Bailey,

The inquest heard Saadallah was “in limbo” for years as his asylum application in the UK was refused, and he was also ineligible for deportation to Libya because of the country’s civil war.

He arrived lawfully in the UK in April 2012 on a visitor’s visa, which expired in September of the same year.

The judge said there had been a failure at the Home Office system. While Saadallah was in HMP Bullingdon he expressed his intentions to “stab someone” but his comment did not form part of an intelligence report about him until after the terror attack, the judge said.

Saadallah was referred to Prevent four times, but the referrals were closed on four occasions when he was sent to prison. The judge coroner said information provided to MI5 by Counter Terrorism Policing South East was “inadequate”.

In January 2021, Saadallah was handed a whole-life sentence at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to three murders and three attempted murders.

Judge Coroner Fulford recorded a conclusion of unlawful killing for the deaths.