Nearly 10,000 people were referred to the government’s anti-terrorism scheme, Prevent, in the year to September 2025, Home Office figures show, a record number for the programme.
Figures show 10,293 referrals were made in England and Wales for 9,957 people – up by 39% from the previous 12 months and the highest number in a single year since records began in 2015.
Where the age is known, 393 referrals were for children under 10, the largest proportion concerned 11 to 15-year-olds at 36%, followed by 16 to 17 year-olds at 13% of referrals.
The Home Office said the spike was in part due to “heightened public awareness of Prevent” after the Southport attacks in July 2024, where a teenager killed three girls at a dance class.
Axel Rudakubana was 17-years-old when he stabbed 11 children and two adults, killing nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and six-year-old Bebe King at a Taylor Swift–themed yoga and dance workshop.
Rudakubana was referred to Prevent on three occasions between 2019 and 2021 due to his interest in terrorist attacks and school shootings, but there was no evidence of a fixed ideology or motivation.
A government review found that his case was closed “prematurely”, and that counter terrorism officers staffing the Prevent scheme had “sufficient information” to escalate Rudakubana’s case to the next stage – known as Channel – which would have included enhanced monitoring for those deemed at risk of radicalisation.
The Home Office said the Southport attacks may have also led to a 117% increase in referrals discussed at a Channel panel, rising from 997 to 2,159.
It also cited a major review from last year led by Lord David Anderson KC, which found an increase in Prevent referrals from January to March 2025 during Rudakubana’s trial.
The Home Office said it was possible that “a number of operational and policy changes and improvements, along with associated training rolled out” may have also had an impact on referrals.
Tim Jacques, the government’s Independent Prevent Commissioner, said greater awareness about the scheme “isn’t a bad thing”, but “the system wasn’t set up for the problem it’s currently dealing with”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme that the “online world” has become “massive factor in what we see in these referral statistics”.
“The role of the online world and online influence, and how people with some grievance, some sense of fascination in violence can find communities that will echo those beliefs and develop those beliefs is a phenomenon… which is relatively new,” he said.
Thursday’s figures show that 20% of the total referrals were because of concerns over extreme right-wing ideology – an increase from 1,480 to 2,103 in the previous 12 months – while 8% of referrals concerned Islamist extremism.
A further 8% of referrals concerned fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks, 1% concerned Incel extremism, and 0.3% concerned left-wing extremism.
More than half of the referrals (56%) were for individuals with no identified ideology.
The Home Office also published data showing the ethnicity of those referred to Prevent.
This is not mandatory and can be left blank, and only 5,315 (52%) referrals included the data.
Of these referrals, 68% were white, 18% were Asian, 8% were black, while 7% were listed as “other”.
Prevent, which forms a key part of the UK’s counter-terror strategy, places a legal duty on public bodies to identify people who may turn to extremism.
The Home Office figures are for England and Wales. Scotland reports its referral figures separately.
