For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
A violence-obsessed teenager who murdered three girls at a dance class in Southport tried to take a taxi to his former school a week before his rampage – but was stopped by his father.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, was reportedly excluded from secondary school over allegations he was carrying a knife and later returned to attack someone with a hockey stick.
Just a week before he went to the dance class in The Hart Space he booked a taxi to take him to Range High School in Formby, which kicked him out in 2019, but his father stopped him from leaving.
He went on to kill Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in a “meticulously planned” attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club on 29 July last year.
He had been due to stand trial for four weeks at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, having denied three counts of murder and ten of attempted murder. But he dramatically changed his plea on the first day of the trial, admitting to 16 counts, which also included producing the deadly poison ricin and possession of a document which contained al-Qaeda training material.
Aged 17 at the time of the attack, Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved with his family to the village of Banks in Lancashire about a decade ago.
Neighbours in their quiet cul-de-sac described the family as unremarkable, but it can now be reported that teachers had concerns about his behaviour from when he entered year nine. Rudakubana was eventually excluded after telling Childline that he was being racially bullied and was bringing a knife into school to protect himself, it is understood.
It is not known if he was being bullied or if he ever brought a weapon into the school while he was a pupil. After his exclusion, he reportedly returned to the school and assaulted someone with a hockey stick.
He apparently attended two specialist schools afterwards, The Acorns School in Lancashire and Presfield High School & Specialist College in Southport, and teachers were concerned about his behaviour. His in-person attendance at Presfield was less than 1%, it is understood.
At his first appearance at Liverpool Crown Court, Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, said Rudakubana had been unwilling to leave the house and communicate with his family for a period of time.
She said: “He was seen by the psychiatrists at the police station but refused to engage with them.”
The court was told he had no obvious evidence of mental health disorder which required diversion to hospital.
At all of his court appearances, Rudakubana held his sweatshirt over his face and refused to speak. When he first entered Liverpool Magistrates’ Court, he was seen to smile towards members of the press before covering his face.
A profile of his father Alphonse Rudakubana, printed in local newspaper the Southport Visiter in 2015, said he moved to the UK in 2002 but was originally from Rwanda – a country that suffered a deadly genocide in the early 1990s.
Rudakubana, the youngest son of the family, was born in Cardiff, where neighbours of the family described a “lovely couple” with a hardworking father and stay-at-home mother to “two boisterous boys”.
In 2013 they moved to Banks, just a few miles outside of Southport, where Rudakubana’s father trained with local martial arts clubs.
The family lived in a mid-terrace three-bedroom house in a newly built cul-de-sac of a dozen or so properties.
At 11 years old, Rudakubana appeared dressed as Doctor Who in a television advert for BBC Children In Need, after being recruited through a casting agency, it is understood.
The now-deleted clip shows him leaving the Tardis wearing a trench coat and tie to look like the show’s former star David Tennant and offering advice on how best to raise money.
+ There are no comments
Add yours