In 2011, Khaira Saadallah, a Libyan national, joined Ansar al-Sharia, a proscribed Islamist terrorist organisation, as a child soldier, during the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.
A year later, he came to the UK, but his asylum claim, and subsequent appeals were rejected.
He was not deported as, by July 2014, Libya had become so unstable it was not possible to deport him. Four years later, he received leave to remain in the UK.
This is despite him having a history of offending.
In September 2013, Saadallah was arrested in possession of a bladed article.
Between 2013 and 2019, he clocked up nine convictions for 20 offences, and accumulated a further 27 charges.
He was jailed in May 2015 – the first of five custodial sentences.
In 2016, Saadallah was moved to Reading and he regularly met with mental health services but did not receive secondary treatment for his personality disorder.
In November that year, he was jailed for a second time.
Between 2016 and 2019, three triage assessments of Saadallah were carried out by MI5 but were not taken any further.
In January 2017, during his second prison sentence, intelligence was submitted that Saadallah was keen to associate with Omar Brooks, an extremist Islamist preacher.
In February 2017, the first Prevent referral was made on the basis of disclosures that Saadallah wished to return go to Libya to avenge his family’s deaths but was closed with the reasoning that he had received a long custodial sentence.
In December the same year, a second Prevent referral was made following Saadallah’s recall to prison and probation’s concern about his vulnerability to extremism. This was closed on the basis that having received leave to remain, this had mitigated his risk.
In November 2018, the third Prevent referral was made after Saadallah was arrested with a large kitchen knife, and in police custody disclosed he hated England and wanted to return to Libya to shoot people.
This referral was closed on the basis that his disclosures were made in the context of mental health difficulties, rather than because of an ideological mindset.
He was jailed again in March 2019.
In May 2019, a final Prevent referral was made after Saadallah disclosed he wanted to go to Libya and fight for ISIS. This was closed in December 2019, with the assertion that he showed no signs of extremist views and was not a national security threat.
The same month, MI5 opened their first lead investigation to determine Saadallah’s desire to travel to Libya for extremist purpose but was closed after an assessment that he did not have a genuine intention to travel to Libya.
By August 2019, Saadallah was serving his fifth, and final prison sentence before the attack.
On June 5, 2020, Saadallah was released on licence and was being managed by the National Probation Service and was assessed as high risk of harm.
He was not placed at an approved premises, he was not discussed at a MAPPA meeting after his release, he was not on any mental health caseload and was not subject to any counter terrorism policing oversight.
On June 17, 2020, Saadallah visited Forbury Gardens and confirmed it as the venue for his attack.
Two days later, he bought a knife that was to be used in his assault.
The same day, Saadallah’s brother called 999 expressing concern that Saadallah had made threats to blow himself up and indicated he was going to harm himself or others.
Counter-terrorism police were contacted who responded that they had no current intelligence of concern.
The response to the 999 call was to send police out to a welfare visit to Saadallah. The police did not pass any information about the 999 call to the probation service.
On Saturday, June 20, 2020, Saadallah carried out his planned attack, killing James Furlong, David Wails and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett as they sat in the park with their friends.
In January 2021, he was sentenced to whole life imprisonment after a judge determined he had made a jihadist attack.
