Southport monster hides in his cell and refuses to ‘face up to his evil crimes’

Southport monster Axel Rudakubana hid in his cell as he was told he would likely die behind bars.

Rudakubana was removed from the dock twice after repeatedly shouting and disrupting proceedings.

One family member of a victim branded him a “coward” as he left.

The vile killer then told his lawyer he did not want to attend the sentencing hearing and vowed to disrupt the judge further if he was made to return.

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick told the Daily Express: “This coward could not face up to his evil crimes. His crimes are so monstrous he should never be released from prison.”

Gangster Thomas Cashman, who shot schoolgirl Olivia Pratt-Korbel, baby killer Lucy Letby and monsters Jordan McSweeney and Koci Selamaj are all among high profile criminals to have not appeared in the dock after some of Britain’s most heinous offences.

Prime Minister has vowed to give judges powers to force criminals to appear in the dock to receive their sentences.

The law change is expected to be made in the Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill, which will be laid in Parliament in the next few months.

, who pledged to bring in the new power, did not see through his plans before the lost power in July 2024.

Speaking of the law change during the meeting with Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mother, Sir Keir said: “It’s really important to meet today because we met 17 months ago and I said two things: we will support the previous government on this, and if we get into power, we’ll make sure this happens.

“That’s the promise I made to you and it’s a promise I’m going to keep, and that’s why this is forthcoming legislation is so important.

“We have put this in the first King’s Speech, so we will legislate on this at the first chance and we should have it before the summer.”

Justice chiefs came under fire for Ruakubana avoiding a whole life order.

Whole-life orders can normally only be imposed on criminals aged 21 and over, but can be considered for those aged 18 to 20 in exceptional circumstances.

However, although Rudakubana is now 18, he does not fall into this category as he was 17 when he committed his offences.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said of the sentence: “Axel Rudakubana should never be released from prison.

“His age means he has not been given a whole life sentence, despite the countless lives he destroyed on that dreadful day, and the legacy of mistrust he has sown across the country.

“There is a strong case here for amending the law to give clear judicial discretion to award whole life sentences to under 18s, which will start to explore.

“My heart goes out to the victims and their families. None of us can imagine your pain and we owe you justice.

“While the Government inquiry is a step in the right direction, it falls short of what is needed.

“It must address two critical issues: 1) why wasn’t Rudakubana apprehended sooner? and 2) the transparency of information during and after the unrest that followed this barbaric incident.

“One of my greatest frustrations is the deflection that often follows domestic terrorism incidents.

“It is absurd that we are debating online knife sales more than we are integration and how we safeguard our society from extreme ideologies and violence.

“’s statement on Monday was disappointing. He sidestepped the core issues, focusing instead on legal definitions of terrorism.

“By avoiding these hard truths he inadvertently politicises our response to this tragedy.

“The will not avoid hard truths. We are under new leadership.”

Jenny Stancombe, mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, said: “His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief and it is only right that he faces the same.

“We hope he uses his time in prison to reflect on the gravity of what he has done, though if we go from his actions and behaviour during this process we have little faith that he will ever feel the remorse he should.

“There is nothing that can undo the damage he has caused but knowing that he will never be free to cause any harm to vulnerable children again would give us a small measure of justice.

“Perhaps he will have the opportunity to contemplate the fear and terror he inflicted upon those girls, and we sincerely want the consequences to reflect the irreparable damage he has inflicted.”

Former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland said: “A tweak could be to allow judges to treat people who have turned 18 by the time of sentencing to be dealt with as an adult.”

Patrick Hurley, the Labour MP for Southport, said he would like to see a law change which could allow for whole-life sentences in cases like that of Axel Rudakubana.

He told Radio 4’s World at One: “There appears to be no reason, no rationale, that I can accept that he would not be treated as an adult for the purposes of sentencing here,

and if that’s not going to be the case, then I would like to see the law changed to make it the case.”

He added: “For all intents and purposes, Rudakubana was an adult on that day. He was nine days short of his date of majority, his 18th birthday.

“There’s even speculation as to whether or not he planned the date of the attack in order to avoid a full life term and I think if we cannot find a way to ensure that he doesn’t spend the rest of his life behind bars, then we do need to look at what we can do to change the law, because what we’ve seen in court today, it’s just been utterly disgusting and distressing for everybody that’s been following the case and we can’t allow that to happen again.

“And for anybody else that might want to or might look to undertake something similar in the future, these people need to be never set free.

“Society is much better with them being locked up for the rest of their life.”

Katie Amess, whose father David was murdered by Islamist terrorist Ali Harbi Ali, said the public should receive “a guarantee” that killers like Rudakubana “should never, ever walk free”.

She said: “There shouldn’t be a likeliness of the man spending the rest of his life in prison, there should be a guarantee that he should never, ever walk free because we can’t have people like that being released.

“And what kind of message does it send to anybody else that might be thinking of doing something and then not have to spend the rest of their lives in prison.”

On Thursday, Ms Amess also repeated her calls for an inquiry into the Government’s counter-extremism Prevent programme, saying the parallels with her father’s case were “stomach-turning”.

Ms Amess said Prevent was not “foiling any terrorist attacks, it is allowing people to commit these crimes”.

Both Rudakubana and Ali, who stabbed Southend MP Sir David to death at a constituency surgery in 2021, had been referred to Prevent.

In Rudakubana’s case, those referrals were closed due to his apparent lack of a clear ideology.

Ms Amess said there should be an inquiry into “every single” case where someone known to Prevent goes on to kill.

She said: “Terrorism is terrorism. It doesn’t matter if you’re following Islamic terrorist ideologies or if you’re somebody on the far right that’s doing terrorist crimes…

“I am just very confused as to why I am not allowed an inquiry because they said it could compromise security if we released to the public everything that was known about the man and where they failed following up with him.

Ms Amess said cases like her own are not isolated. She said: “Every single person that has been failed by Prevent and by the government and also by the police force – I know the police weren’t to blame in that scenario, in that situation – they should also have an inquiry because I mean this is not isolated, it’s not just Southport and me.”

She said that she had looked into taking legal action against the Government to get answers. Ms Amess said: “It cost me tens of thousands I would say at this point. and then the coroner said it’s nothing to do with the courts.

“You need to ask the government. So I asked the government, the Conservative one. They ignored me, said go through somebody else. And then I asked the Labour government and they also said that they couldn’t help but that they were hiring a new commissioner for Prevent.”