The King has led the nation in a two-minute silence during a Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph.

He was joined by other members of the Royal Family and senior politicians, who laid wreaths to the fallen.

The Queen and the Princess of Wales took their places on Foreign Office balconies overlooking Whitehall.

The Duke of Kent and the Duchess of Edinburgh were also on the balconies, along with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.

Three D-Day veterans were among those attending the ceremony.

In total, about 20 veterans who served in the Second World War were there, receiving applause as they took their positions close to the Cenotaph.

About a dozen people wearing military uniforms and poppies were pushed in wheelchairs.

Henry Rice, a former signalman who arrived off Juno Beach five days after D-Day, and Mervyn Kersh who arrived in Normandy aged 19, three days after the start of the D-Day invasion, were there.

Sid Machin, one of six 101-year-olds registered to march was also present and is one of the last surviving “Chindit” soldiers from the Second World War Burma campaign.

As a young man of about 19, Mr Machin landed behind enemy lines in a glider at night in the jungle, as part of a special forces unit in Burma (now Myanmar), which wreaked havoc on Japanese supply lines and infrastructure.

Donald Poole, 101, was a Royal Army Ordnance Corps technician who handled defective explosives or enemy ammunition.

He was serving in India in 1945 when the surrender of Japan was announced.

“It is a great honour to be able to pay tribute to the poor souls who have died in all conflicts and I know how lucky I am to still be here thanks to all those who have fought and served, past and present,” he said.

“I also want to pay tribute to the civilian services who suffered during the Second World War, particularly the fire service, who saved so many lives during the Blitz – many of whom lost their own.”

An estimated 10,000 armed forces veterans are taking part in the Royal British Legion’s marchpast.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “This Remembrance Sunday, we pause as a nation to honour all those who have served our country.

“We reflect on the extraordinary courage of our Armed Forces in the world wars and subsequent conflicts, whose service secured the freedoms we cherish today.”

Reflecting on the 80th anniversary of WWII, Sir Keir spoke of “a generation who stood against tyranny and shaped our future”.

He added: “Such sacrifice deserves more than silence, which is why this government remains committed to supporting veterans, their families and those who serve.

“Today, we remember, and we renew our promise to uphold the values they fought for.”

The two-minute silence began at 11am on Sunday, with the march starting at 11.25am.

Thousands of people were expected to line Whitehall to pay tribute.

Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton said: “From the Cenotaph in London to memorials in towns and villages across the United Kingdom, and wherever our Armed Forces serve around the world, we pause to remember their courage, their sacrifice and their enduring legacy.

“We shall remember them.”

Last night, Sir Keir joined members of the Royal Family at the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance.

Sir Rod Stewart, Sam Ryder and Keala Settle were on the bill – along with performances by the Central Band of the RAF, the RAF Squadronaires and the Band of HM Royal Marines – during the event at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham hosted the festival and sang We’ll Meet Again – telling the audience of the courage of her granddad, who is a veteran.

Harry Waddingham is 109 years old, and one of the oldest living men in the United Kingdom.

The Princess of Wales was seen wearing a black dress adorned with a handmade poppy created out of silk, glass and other natural materials, along with earrings belonging to the late Queen.

The Prince of Wales was absent as he travelled back from Brazil where he attended the COP30 climate summit.

Prince George attended for the first time – and watched intently as emotional videos of veterans speaking about their experiences were played.

The King was announced as a patron of the Royal British Legion last year.

When 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana got into a taxi on 29 July last year, it was the first time he’d left the family home on his own in more than two years.

His troubling behaviour and obsession with violence had brought him into contact with police, including counter-terrorism officers, the criminal justice system, social services, and mental health professionals over the previous five years.

His degree-educated, Christian parents, Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire, were used to his violent outbursts, knew he had bought a small arsenal of weapons online, and had a history of carrying knives.

They thought he posed a threat to his father and older brother, but say they never thought he was capable of carrying out the mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class – killing Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and injuring eight other children and two adults.

From the evidence that’s emerged at the public inquiry into the atrocity in the Lancashire seaside town, it seems obvious he would carry out an attack, raising serious questions about why so many opportunities were missed to stop him.

Harrowing accounts

When the inquiry started at Liverpool Town Hall in July, a little under a year after the murders, we heard harrowing accounts from those who were in the upstairs dance studio in the Hart Space, when Rudakubana walked through the door armed with a 20cm chef’s knife.

There were tales of extreme bravery – among them an already badly injured girl stabbed another six times in the back when she tried to defend her younger sister, and John Hayes, the businessman stabbed after running from his office next door to tackle the attacker.

Others regretted not doing more – taxi driver Gary Poland, who took Rudakubana to the scene, apologised after the inquiry heard he drove off as children’s screams rang out and didn’t call police for 50 minutes.

The teacher who organised the event, Leanne Lucas, 36, who was badly injured and first to call 999, said there was nothing she could have done to keep the children safe after “multiple organisations” had failed to stop the killer.

‘Visceral sense of dread’

Rudakubana lived in Cardiff with his parents, who were granted asylum in the UK after fleeing the Rwandan genocide, and his older brother Dion before the family moved to Southport in 2013.

His family told how his behaviour rapidly deteriorated when he was in Year 8, as he became withdrawn and isolated and prone to regular violent outbursts at home.

He was expelled from Range High School, in Formby, Lancashire, in October 2019 after calling Childline to say he was carrying a knife into school because he wanted to kill a boy he said was bullying him.

He was then sent to The Acorns School in Ormskirk, a pupil referral unit, where the headteacher Joanne Hodson felt a “visceral sense of dread” like “he was building up to something”.

When she asked him why he had taken a knife to his former school, “he looked me in the eyes and said ‘to use it’,” she said. “This is the only time in my career that a pupil has said this to me or behaved in a manner so devoid of any remorse.”

Assessed as ‘medium risk’

She feared Rudakubana was going to “bring something” to The Acorns, but he instead took a taxi back to Range High School in December 2019, carrying a knife in his bag, and attacked a boy in the corridor with a hockey stick after he couldn’t find the supposed bully.

On 19 February 2020, then aged 13, he received a 10-month referral order after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and possession of a bladed article. It was his only criminal conviction before the Southport attack.

The order required him to take courses and participate in education but most of his contact with the Lancashire council youth offending team (YOT) was by phone during the first COVID lockdown and social workers had just three 30-minute face-to-face sessions to address his behaviour.

Rudakubana was assessed as “medium risk” and despite repeatedly refusing to see social workers, no enforcement action was taken, while two days before his case was closed, on 19 January 2021, it was noted his dad had slapped him in an argument.

The inquiry heard Mr Rudakubana had been kicked in the groin by his son, who threatened to break his laptop in one of his regular violent outbursts at home, which could be triggered by losing an argument or a visit from social workers.

His mum said she felt “physically unwell” when he would smash things, while her husband said he was “ashamed” he became “conditioned to his behaviour, allowed him to abuse and assault me” because “any attempt to impose discipline” was met with an “escalation”.

In November 2021, Rudakubana “trashed” his parents’ house, leading to his mother calling the police and, in another incident, kicked his father and threw a plate at a rental car, damaging the windscreen, again leading to his parents calling the police.

Teachers ‘lost faith’ in anti-terrorism programme

Meanwhile, staff at The Acorns made three referrals to the government’s anti-terror programme Prevent between 2019 and 2021 because he was looking at material about “school mass shootings” and talking about guns and beheadings.

He had also referred to the Manchester Arena attack as a “good battle” and researched the London Bridge terrorist attack, although it later emerged he had anti-Islamic cartoons on his laptop along with graphic images of dead bodies.

Every time his case was closed because he did not seem to have any clear ideology, even though the Home Office had alerted Prevent workers to the threat of those interested in school shootings.

When Rudakubana made comments thought to be antisemitic in January 2022, teachers did not make another Prevent referral as the head said they’d “lost faith that anything would be done”.

His parents said they hid the kitchen knives at home after the Range High School attack, but on 17 March 2022, Rudakubana, then 15, was found on a bus with a small kitchen knife after refusing to pay the fare. He told police he wanted to stab someone and said, “I’ve also thought about poisoning people”.

But instead of being arrested and charged, he was treated as a vulnerable person and taken home by officers who made a referral for social services and mental health support. It was the last time he left home alone before the attack.

‘Struggling to cope’

Lancashire council’s children and family wellbeing service closed a series of four cases designed to support the family dealing with Rudakubana, and the attempts to get him to leave his house and go to school ended 10 months before the attack because he was refusing to see them.

Presfield Specialist High School, which specialises in pupils with autism, agreed to take Rudakubana on as a pupil in March 2022, but despite repeated attempts to get him to turn to play basketball or eat pizza, his attendance was only 0.7% over two years. He was removed from the roll a month before the attack.

His father told the school attendance team that he would “pay the price” if staff were allowed into the house and his mother “flatly refused” to let them see her son, the inquiry heard.

Police were called to the family home after another 999 call in the early hours of 14 May 2022, after Rudakubana threw food and tried to flood the house after an argument about access to his laptop.

Officers recorded that Rudakubana’s parents were “struggling to cope” and had agreed to contact Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the GP.

Rudakubana was first referred to Alder Hey by his GP in August 2019, but waited 77 weeks for an autism diagnosis.

Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (FCAMHS) declined to assess his risk to himself and others without the diagnosis, and in the end he was only treated for anxiety.

‘Trust me, I will kill you’

One consultant psychologist said she no longer “felt safe” working with Rudakubana’s father, who admitted withholding “some” information about his son’s violence to CAMHS, which was assessing his risk to himself and others.

Another, Dr Anthony Molyneux, told the inquiry Rudakubana “presented, in essence, as an unremarkable, sullen, untalkative, gawky teenage boy.”

However, in an incident in early 2024, Rudakubana poured a bottle of oil over his father and told him: “Trust me, I will kill you.”

Rudakubana was discharged from Alder Hey CAMHS on 23 July 2024, just six days before the attack, with a document recording: “Poses risk to others: None,” although they knew he hadn’t left the house for five months, was refusing to wash and was not eating properly.

The previous day, Rudakubana had burst into his father’s bedroom brandishing a kitchen knife identical to the one used in the mass stabbing and jabbed it into the bed.

He asked about the Range, where it was the last day of term, and if Mr Rudakubana would get him petrol.

Read more:
Rudakubana was ‘building up to something’
Rudakubana judged as posing no risk to others
The missed chances to stop Rudakubana
More capacity for mental health referrals ‘needed‘

Foiled ‘arson attack’ at old school

His father refused before begging a taxi driver not to take his son to his old school, where he believed he planned to carry out an arson attack, and Rudakubana threatened him, warning: “Next time, if you stop me, there will be consequences.”

His bedroom was usually “off limits”, but on the evening of 22 July last year, he allowed his parents in to clean it.

Mr Rudakubana told the inquiry his wife was “petrified” when they found a bow and arrow, what is now thought to be his attempt to prepare a crude version of the deadly poison ricin, and firecrackers under his bed.

His son had ordered castor seeds, concentrated alcohol and laboratory apparatus from Amazon between January and February 2022.

Using stolen ID, Rudakubana also bought three machetes – two which were intercepted by his father – and two kitchen knives, one of which he used in the attack, which Mr Rudakubana is also thought to have accepted delivery of in what he accepted was a “serious breach” of his duty as a parent.

‘I’m desperately sorry,’ says father

Mr Rudakubana said he was worried his son would be taken into care and his fear of him “prevented him from doing things a parent would normally do”, such as restricting internet activity and ordering weapons online, which “had catastrophic consequences for which I’m desperately sorry“.

“I accept I bear my share of the responsibility and that by not challenging his behaviour he was allowed to acquire dangerous weapons and view inappropriate content online,” he said.

Six minutes before he left home on 29 July, Rudakubana searched X for an attack on a bishop in Sydney by an alleged teenage terrorist.

Self-described “free speech warrior” Deanna Romina Khananisho, the social media firm’s head of global government, gave evidence to the inquiry defending the company’s decision not to remove the video, which is still available, despite requests from the UK and Australian authorities.

Wanted to ‘hurt society’

Lancashire Police Assistant Chief Constable Mark Winstanley warned there are many young men viewing similar material to Rudakubana and said he fears there could be another attack.

After leaving the house on 29 July last year, Rudakubana went for a walk, called taxis and came back to the outside of the house before finally taking a cab to the Hart Space.

His brother Dion said their mum found knife packaging in the washing machine but both parents said they thought he’d gone for a walk – despite having not gone out alone since he was caught with a knife in March 2022.

Rudakubana’s mother and father could offer no motive for the target, but his brother – who compared him to the “sociopath” killer played by Javier Bardem in the film No Country For Old Men – suggested it was because “children are very valuable to society” and it would “hurt society very badly” if children were to be harmed.

Rudakubana has been jailed for life with a minimum of 52 years and the inquiry chairman, Sir Adrian Fulford, hopes to deliver his report on the first phase by spring.

But the parents of the girls who died have already seen enough to reach conclusions, calling for Rudakubana’s parents, and every agency involved to be held to account.

Bebe’s parents, Lauren and Ben King, said it’s “been painfully clear that Bebe was failed at every possible turn”.

The Home Office is looking at what Denmark is doing to cut illegal migration, Sky News understands.

Last month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood dispatched officials to the Nordic nation to study its border control and asylum policies, which are considered some of the toughest in Europe.

In particular, officials are understood to be looking at Denmark’s tighter rules on family reunion and restricting most refugees to a temporary stay in the country.

Ms Mahmood will announce a major shake-up of the UK’s immigration system later this month, PA is reporting.

Labour MPs are said to be split on the move.

Some, in so-called Red Wall seats which are seen as vulnerable to challenge from Reform UK, want ministers to go further in the direction Denmark has taken.

But others believe the policies will estrange progressive voters and push the Labour Party too far to the right.

It comes as the government continues to struggle to get immigration under control, with rising numbers of small boat crossings in the Channel over the last few months and a migrant, deported under the UK’s returns deal with France, re-entering the country.

Some 648 people crossed the Channel to Britain in nine boats on Friday, according to Home Office figures, bringing the total for the year to 38,223.

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Ms Mahmood wants deterrents in place to stop migrants seeking to enter the country via unauthorised routes.

She also wants to make it easier to remove those who are found to have no right to stay in the UK.

Sources told the PA news agency she was eager to meet her Danish counterpart, Rasmus Stoklund, the country’s immigration minister, at the earliest possible convenience.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Stoklund likened Danish society to “the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings” and said people coming to the country who do not contribute positively would not be welcome.

Mr Stoklund said: “We are a small country. We live peacefully and quietly with each other. I guess you could compare us to the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings.”

“We expect people who come here to participate and contribute positively, and if they don’t they aren’t welcome.”

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The split in Labour was apparent from public comments by MPs today.

Stoke-on-Trent Central Labour MP Gareth Snell told Radio 4’s Today programme that any change bringing “fairness” to an asylum system that his constituents “don’t trust” was “worth exploring”.

But Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome, who is a member of the party’s Socialist Campaign Group caucus, said: “I think these are policies of the far right. I don’t think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them.”