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A teenager who three young girls shot dead to a Taylor Swift-England-themed dance class was sentenced Thursday to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “want to attempt mass murder of innocent, happy young girls.”
Goose said he could not impose a life sentence without parole because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.
But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he has been in custody, before he is considered for parole, and “it is likely he will never be released.”
Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the coastal town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He injured eight other girls, ranging from 7 to 13 years old. , along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.
The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul searching. The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence.
Defendant disrupts the hearing
Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and additional charges of possession of a knife, the poison ricin and a al-Qaeda manual He changed unexpectedly his plea of guilty at all costs on Monday.
But he was not in court to hear Thursday’s ruling.
Hours earlier, he was brought into the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England, dressed in a gray prison tracksuit. But as prosecutors began to outline the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting that he felt sick and wanted to see a paramedic.
Goose ordered the suspect to be removed when he continued to yell. A person in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakubana was taken out.
The hearing continued without him.
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Horror on a summer day
Prosecutor Deanna Heer described how the attack happened on the first day of summer vacation when 26 little girls “were gathered around the tables to make bracelets and sing along to Taylor Swift songs.”
Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, entered and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.
The court was shown video of the suspect arriving in a taxi at the Hart Space location and entering the building. Within seconds, screams broke out and children ran outside in panic, some of them injured. One girl came to the door, but was pulled inside by the assailant. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.
Gasps and sobs could be heard in court as the videos played.
Heer said two of the dead children suffered “particularly horrific injuries that are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another had 85 injuries.
A teenager obsessed with violence
The prosecutor said Rudakubana “had a long obsession with violence, murder, genocide.”
“His only goal was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” she said, while relatives of the victims watched in the courtroom.
Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard saying: “It’s good that those children are dead, I’m so happy, I’m so happy.”
The murders triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on false reports that the attacker was an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in the United Kingdom. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and claimed that the police and the government were withholding information.
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators have been unable to determine his motivation. Police found documents on subjects including Nazi Germanythe Rwandan genocide and car bombs on his devices.
In the years before the attack, he had been reported to multiple authorities about his violent interests and actions. All agencies failed to spot the danger he posed.
In 2019, he called a children’s advice line to ask “What should I do if I want to kill someone?” He said he took a knife to school because he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. Two months later he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.
The definition of terrorism
Prosecutors said Rudakubana was referred to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, three times when he was 13 and 14 — once after investigating school shootings in the classroom, then for uploading photos of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to Instagram and for researching a London terrorist attack.
But they concluded that his crimes should not be classified as terrorism because Rudakubana had no visible political or religious cause. Heer said “his goal was the commission of mass murder, not for a particular purpose, but as an end in itself.”
Prime minister Keir Starmer said this week the country must face up to a “new threat” of violent individuals whose mix of motivations tests the traditional definition of terrorism.
“After one of the most terrifying moments in our country’s history, we owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change they deserve,” Starmer said. after the sentencing.
Wrenching testimony from victims
Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court, describing how the attack had destroyed their lives.
Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said that “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrific.”
“I can’t pity myself or accept praise, like how can I live knowing that I survived when children died?” she said.
A 14-year-old survivor, who cannot be named because of a court order, said that while she was physically recovering. “We will all have to live with the mental pain of that day forever.”
“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing we think you’re a coward,” she said.
The prosecutor read a statement from Alice Da Silva Aguiar’s parents, who said their daughter’s murder had “destroyed our souls.”
“We cook for three. Now we only cook for two. It doesn’t look good”, they said. “Alice was our purpose to live, so what do we do now?”
