Overview
- Joanne Hodson, head of The Acorns pupil referral unit, testified she had a visceral sense of dread about Rudakubana and directed staff to search him regularly for knives.
- She recounted that, when asked why he took a knife to school, he replied "to use it," and his parents did not react, having framed him as a good boy who had been bullied.
- Hodson said she removed words such as "sinister" and "cold and calculating" from education documents after mental health workers challenged the language as racially biased.
- Acorns made Prevent referrals in December 2019, February 2021 and April 2021, but MI5 did not open a Security Service investigation because no identifiable extremist ideology was found.
- Earlier evidence detailed a December 2019 incident at Range High in which Rudakubana struck a pupil with a hockey stick and police found a knife in his bag, as the inquiry continues in Liverpool through November.