Juliana Falcon’s intervention was crucial in preventing her son carrying out a school massacre – she was murdered because of it

Published

5 months ago

March 19, 2025

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The final act of Juliana Falcon’s life, in the minutes before she was shot dead by her son, potentially saved dozens of others.

Realising the unthinkable about her child, her intervention was crucial in preventing him from carrying out what could have been one of the worst mass killings ever to happen in the UK.

Triple killer who murdered family jailed for at least 49 years

It was late at night when the 48-year-old interrupted her teenage son, Nicholas Prosper, in his bedroom with a gun.

He was preparing to carry out a massacre at his old primary school the following day.

Police believe Juliana spotted the shotgun and confronted her son about what he was up to, and there was a struggle as he began attacking his mother.

Her intervention changed everything.

Prosper, 18, shot his mother dead with the firearm he had bought illegally less than 24 hours earlier.

Over the next few hours in the family’s eighth-floor flat in Luton, he also shot dead his 13-year-old sister, Giselle, and shot and repeatedly stabbed his 16-year-old brother, Kyle.

The noise of the killings alerted neighbours and meant police would be on their way, so Prosper’s plan had to be brought forward.

“My f****** mum messed it up,” he wrote down while in custody. “My mother is a f****** stupid cow.”

A plan for ‘notoriety’

Prosper left the flat at 5.30am on 13 September last year, hours before the school would open.

He had meticulously researched school massacres, was fascinated by violence and led a dysfunctional life online. He craved notoriety.

He took with him more than 30 shotgun cartridges which, he had calculated, would enable him to kill more children than any other school attack.

When he was arrested, he was on his way to his old primary school to target the youngest children there, aged just four and five.

In a note he later wrote in prison, he confessed he “wanted to cause the biggest [school] massacre in the 21st century and be more famous than Sandy Hook”.

A total of 26 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, USA in 2012. The killer there had shot dead his own mother at home before going to the school.

Prosper’s mother’s actions in Luton, disturbing his plan early, denied him that appalling place in history.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Sam Khanna, of Bedfordshire Police, told Sky News that Prosper’s ambition “was most definitely notoriety… to be known as being responsible for the biggest school shooting on record.”

He had researched in detail every shooting school shooting across the world “within the last 15, 20 years,” he said.

“He’d done his sums, and he wanted to be responsible for the most amount [of deaths]. Killing his family was the first part of it. But then going to a school and killing numerous children, teachers, then finally himself.”

Concerns raised

Prosper was raised in Luton and had attended St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, where he planned to carry out an attack three-quarters of a mile from his home.

Growing up, teachers thought he was a quiet, introverted boy, with a small group of friends who were interested in computers.

When he went to sixth form aged 16, staff noticed he had become more withdrawn.

The school raised concerns that he could be on the autism spectrum, but he refused to see a GP or accept any help.

DCI Khanna said “very little” was known of Prosper, and “there was certainly no Prevent referral”.

Prevent is the UK’s counter-terrorism programme designed to identify and stop young people being radicalised.

Both of Prosper’s parents “had expressed concerns to the school”, the detective said.

The school had shared those concerns, he said, “but because of his unwillingness to engage with mental health professionals, it didn’t go any further”.

A consultant forensic psychiatrist concluded the teenager shows “all the symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)” but that it was undiagnosed at the time of the killings. He said Prosper has “an extreme lack of empathy with others and an extreme lack of remorse”.

Read more:
What is Prevent?

How did Prosper get a gun?

So how was an 18-year-old able to source a shotgun? The answer is by deception.

Prosper convinced a legitimate seller, who had only previously sold to registered firearms dealers, to deliver the weapon to him.

The teenager produced a convincing but fake shotgun certificate and paid the seller £650 in cash and an extra £30 petrol money to bring the gun and 100 shotgun cartridges to Luton the day before the killings.

Bedfordshire Police investigated and concluded the seller would not face criminal charges. He had been duped by Prosper.

DCI Khanna said Prosper “went to great lengths, looking at templates, looking at prototypes, getting police force logos, signatures, and having copies of genuine certificates, so he could produce what he thought would be good enough to enable him to obtain that shotgun – even down to the printing of the paper with watermarks”.

Prosper spent a lot of time online alone in his bedroom posting troubling comments supporting sexual relationships between adults and children and expressing other extreme views.

He had also become obsessed with the Walking Dead video game, and particularly a character called Clementine who is a vulnerable young girl.

Detectives can’t say if there is a direct link between his “avid use” of the game and the school shooting plan, but it is one aspect of a complex and unhealthy life he led online.

DCI Khanna said Prosper “certainly believed that he had some form of relationship with Clementine, albeit she’s a video game character”.

Police also found indecent images of children on Prosper’s devices.

The investigator said his online research of school massacres was persistent and extremely detailed.

“There’s a lot of talk about the dark web, but this was on the surface web and sites where… you can read manifestos of people that have done horrific acts. They shouldn’t be available to be seen.”

After his arrest, Prosper told a nurse at Bedford prison about his school massacre intentions. He had also written two detailed plans of what he intended to do at the primary school he used to attend.

“We didn’t find any evidence that he had harboured any grudges towards that particular school… it was purely around his knowledge of it,” DCI Khanna said.

After killing his family, he left home “with the right amount of cartridges to complete his plan, right down to the final detail”, he added.

“Once in prison, he has openly talked about the fact that that was his plan – to go to the school and kill children and teachers before finally killing himself.”

Prosper had chosen black and yellow clothes for the attack and as he made his way towards the school in Luton he was spotted by police officers on patrol.

They thought he was acting strangely and knew three members of the same family had been shot dead nearby.

“It’s not murder,” he repeatedly told the officers as they handcuffed him by the roadside.

Months later, he pleaded guilty shortly before he was due to stand trial.

Remembering the victims

The dilemma of whether to make his school shooting plan public has been difficult for police and prosecutors.

It is clearly deeply upsetting for the school community and they are mindful that Prosper craved attention and publicity, but it is also about challenging this kind of extreme behaviour online.

DCI Khanna’s investigation team has examined this “deeply troubling” case with the victims at the forefront of their minds.

“The family has really told us what wonderful people they were,” he said.

Juliana, he said, was “a doting mum who did a lot of work for charity and [was] a very keen runner”.

He described Giselle as “so popular amongst friends, a bright girl with an infectious smile”, while Kyle was a “funny young man, really into his sports and again very popular at school with his friends”.

Now, DCI Khanna said, the focus should be on the victims – “and how much they’ll be missed”.

UK

Three teenagers charged with murder after death of man, 49, in Kent

Published

3 hours ago

August 13, 2025

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Three teenagers charged with murder after death of man, 49, in Kent

Three teenagers have been charged with the murder of a man in Kent.

Kent Police were called to an incident in Leysdown-on-Sea, on the Isle of Sheppey, shortly after 7pm on Sunday.

Alexander Cashford, 49, from Kent, was found dead at the scene, having suffered multiple injuries.

He was allegedly assaulted following a “disturbance involving a small group of people”, according to police.

A 16-year-old girl and two boys, aged 14 and 15, were arrested and taken into custody shortly after.

The three suspects, who were all from London, were charged with murder by joint venture on Tuesday.

They are due to appear before Medway Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday. The teenagers cannot be named for legal reasons.

A 12-year-old girl was arrested on Tuesday in Basildon, Essex, in connection with the incident.

She remains in custody while enquiries continue.

Kent Police are appealing for witnesses who have not yet spoken to detectives to contact the force.

UK

‘Disturbing’ rise in abusive teen relationships – as experts warn of signs to look out for

Published

8 hours ago

August 13, 2025

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'Disturbing' rise in abusive teen relationships - as experts warn of signs to look out for

Marnie’s first serious relationship came when she was 16-years-old.

Warning: This article contains references to strangulation, coercive control and domestic abuse.

She was naturally excited when a former friend became her first boyfriend.

But after a whirlwind few months, everything changed with a slow, determined peeling away of her personality.

“There was isolation, then it was the phone checking,” says Marnie.

As a survivor of abuse, we are not using her real name.

“When I would go out with my friends or do something, I’d get constant phone calls and messages,” she says.

“I wouldn’t be left alone to sort of enjoy my time with my friends. Sometimes he might turn up there, because I just wasn’t trusted to just go and even do something minor like get my nails done.”

He eventually stopped her from seeing friends, shouted at her unnecessarily, and accused her of looking at other men when they would go out.

If she ever had any alone time, he would bombard her with calls and texts; she wasn’t allowed to do anything without him knowing where she was.

He monitored her phone constantly.

“Sometimes I didn’t even know someone had messaged me.

“My mum maybe messaged to ask me where I was. He would delete the message and put my phone away, so then I wouldn’t even have a clue my mum had tried to reach me.”

The toll of what Marnie experienced was only realised 10 years later when she sought help for frequent panic attacks.

She struggled to comprehend the damage her abuser had inflicted when she was diagnosed with PTSD.

This is what psychological abuse and coercive control looks like.

Young women and girls in the UK are increasingly falling victim, with incidents of domestic abuse spiralling among under-25s.

Exclusive data shared with Sky News, gathered by domestic abuse charity Refuge, reveals a disturbing rise in incidents between April 2024 and March 2025.

Psychological abuse was the most commonly reported form of harm, affecting 73% of young women and girls.

Of those experiencing this form of manipulation, 49% said their perpetrator had threatened to harm them and a further 35% said their abuser had threatened to kill them.

Among the 62% of 16-25 year olds surveyed who had reported suffering from physical violence, half of them said they had been strangled or suffocated.

Earlier this year, Sky News reported that school children were asking for advice on strangulation, but Kate Lexen, director of services at charity Tender, says children as young as nine are asking about violent pornography and displaying misogynistic behaviour.

“What we’re doing is preventing what those misogynistic behaviours can then escalate onto,” Ms Lexen says.

Tender has been running workshops and lessons on healthy relationships in primary and secondary schools and colleges for over 20 years.

Children as young as nine ‘talking about strangulation’

Speaking to Sky News, Ms Lexen says new topics are being brought up in sessions, which practitioners and teachers are adapting to.

“We’re finding those Year 5 and Year 6 students, so ages 9, 10 and 11, are talking about strangulation, they’re talking about attitudes that they’ve read online and starting to bring in some of those attitudes from some of those misogynistic influencers.

“There are ways that they’re talking about and to their female teachers.

“We’re finding that from talking to teachers as well that they are really struggling to work out how to broach these topics with the students that they are working with and how to make that a really safe space and open space to have those conversations in an age-appropriate way, which can be very challenging.”

Charities like Tender exist to prevent domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Ms Lexen says without tackling misogynistic behaviours “early on with effective prevention education” then the repercussions, as the data for under 25s proves, will be “astronomical”.

At Refuge, it is already evident. Elaha Walizadeh, senior programme manager for children and young people, says the charity has seen a rise in referrals since last year.

“We have also seen the dynamics of abuse changing,” she adds. “So with psychological abuse being reported, we’ve seen a rise in that and non-fatal strangulation cases, we’ve seen a rise in as well.

“Our frontline workers are telling us that the young people are telling them usually abuse starts from smaller signs. So things like coercive control, where the perpetrators are stopping them from seeing friends and family. It then builds.”

Misogyny to violent behaviour might seem like a leap.

But experts and survivors are testament to the fact that it is happening.

UK

US accuses UK of ‘significant human rights issues’ and restricting free speech

Published

15 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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US accuses UK of 'significant human rights issues' and restricting free speech

The US State Department has accused the UK of having “significant human rights issues”, including restrictions on free speech.

The unflattering assessment comes via a new version of an annual Human Rights Practices report, with its publication coinciding with Vice President JD Vance’s holiday in the Cotswolds.

Politics Hub: Follow latest updates and analysis

It says human rights in the UK “worsened” in 2024, with “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression”, as well as “crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism” since the 7 October Hamas attack against Israel.

On free speech, while “generally provided” for, the report cites “specific areas of concern” around limits on “political speech deemed ‘hateful’ or ‘offensive'”.

Sir Keir Starmer has previously defended the UK’s record on free speech after concerns were raised by Mr Vance.

In response to the report, a UK government spokesperson said: “Free speech is vital for democracy around the world including here in the UK, and we are proud to uphold freedoms whilst keeping our citizens safe.”

The US report highlights Britain’s public space protection orders, which allow councils to restrict certain activities in some public places to prevent antisocial behaviour.

It also references “safe access zones” around abortion clinics, which the Home Office says are designed to protect women from harassment or distress.

They have been criticised by Mr Vance before, notably back in February during a headline-grabbing speech at the Munich Security Conference.

The report also criticises the Online Safety Act and accuses ministers of intervening to “chill speech” about last summer’s murders in Southport, highlighting arrests made in the wake of the subsequent riots.

Ministers have said the Online Safety Act is about protecting children, and repeatedly gone so far as to suggest people who are opposed to it are on the side of predators.

Read more politics news:
Is Keir Starmer falling into booby trap?
What is ex-minister Tulip Siddiq on trial for?

The report comes months after Sir Keir bit back at Mr Vance during a summit at the White House, cutting in when Donald Trump’s VP claimed there are “infringements on free speech” in the UK.

“We’ve had free speech for a very long time, it will last a long time, and we are very proud of that,” the PM said.

But Mr Vance again raised concerns during a meeting with Foreign Secretary David Lammy at his country estate in Kent last week, saying he didn’t want the UK to go down a “very dark path” of losing free speech.

The US State Department’s report echoes similar accusations made by the likes of Nigel Farage and Elon Musk.

The Trump administration itself has been accused of trying to curtail free speech and stifle criticism, most notably by targeting universities – Harvard chief among them.