Southport sentencing LIVE: Axel Rudakubana in court for Taylor Swift dance class murders

Evil Axel Rudakubana was left free to kill three innocent young girls despite spending years on the radar of police, anti-extremism authorities and multiple other public agencies.

Despite repeated concerns being raised over the twisted teen’s sickening obsession with extreme violence, there was only ever limited intervention.

Prime Minister Sir has acknowledged the “state had failed” as he launched a public inquiry over the repeated missed opportunities to stop Rudakubana’s deadly descent.

Warnings were first raised when he was an 11-year-old year nine pupil at Range High School in Formby, Merseyside. Having appeared in a Children In Need campaign video as Dr Who, he told teachers his dreams of becoming a musical theatre star, but regular outbursts of anger towards classmates seemed at odds with his creative aspirations.

CLICK FOR FULL STORY

Axel Rudakubana cannot receive a whole life order because he was 17 years old at the time of his offences. Under UK law, whole life orders are typically reserved for offenders aged 21 and over.

Recent legislative changes have allowed judges to impose whole life orders in exceptional cases for offenders aged 18 to 20.

However, this discretion does not extend to individuals who were under 18 at the time of their crime.

Therefore, despite the severity of his actions, Rudakubana is ineligible for a whole life order due to his age at the time of the offence.

A prison van believes to contain triple killer, Axel Rudakubana has been pictured arriving at Liverpool Crown Court.

Crowds are gathering outside.

Axel Rudakubana, born on 7 August 2006 in Cardiff to Rwandan immigrant parents, carried out a devastating attack in Southport on 29 July 2024.

At 17 years old, he fatally stabbed three young girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class and attempted to murder ten others.

Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, Rudakubana had a history of violent behaviour, including a school exclusion in 2019 for threatening to bring a knife to school and assaulting a fellow student.

Despite multiple referrals to the Prevent counter-extremism programme, his escalating obsession with violence and genocide went unchecked.

He was found in possession of an al-Qaida training manual and had attempted to produce the deadly poison ricin.

He pleaded guilty on Monday at Liverpool Crown Court, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to all charges, including three counts of murder, ten of attempted murder, and terrorism-related offences.

Rudukubana’s knife rampage Southport on 29 July 2024 claimed the lives of three young girls: six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar.

The incident occurred during a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop at the Hart Space community studio, which was attended by 25 children.

In addition to the three fatalities, eight other children sustained injuries, with five reported in critical condition. The workshop’s organiser, yoga teacher Leanne Lucas, was also critically injured while protecting the children.

Another adult passerby, John Hayes, was injured during the attack. The victims were treated at various hospitals, including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, which declared a major incident due to the severity of the situation.

The government has declared the case a wake-up call. Prime Minister said it must lead to “fundamental change” in the way the state protects its citizens, announcing a public inquiry into the failures that allowed Rudakubana to carry out his rampage with a knife he had ordered from Amazon.

He said laws might need updating to combat a “new threat” from violent individuals whose mix of motivations test the traditional definition of terrorism, “acts of extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms.”

The Crown Prosecution Service has defended the decision not to disclose details before Rudakubana went to court, saying “releasing that information earlier would have put the trial at risk.”

Contempt of court laws limit what can be reported before trial, in the interests of preventing jury bias.

The attack occurred on the first day of summer vacation when two dozen little girls were in a class to learn yoga and dance to the songs of Taylor Swift.

What was supposed to be a day of joy turned to terror and heartbreak when Rudakubana, armed with a knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.

The killings in the northwest England town triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the UK. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and alleged that police and the government were withholding information.

Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators have not been able to pin down his motivation.

A violence-obsessed teenager will today be jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for stabbing three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed summer dance class in Southport.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, will be sentenced on Thursday over the July 29 attack, which devastated the seaside town, shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching.

The crime triggered anti-immigrant rioting and has led the government to reconsider its definition of terrorism, its approach to online radicalisation and the way information about criminal suspects is made public.

Rudakubana was charged with three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder for those he injured, and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday – sparing victims’ families a lengthy trial, but also potentially robbing them of answers.