‘Shattered souls’: Tears as UK teen gets life in custody over Southport girls’ murders that sparked riots

A UK judge on Thursday sentenced a self-confessed child killer to life in custody for brutally murdering three young girls in a stabbing spree last year that sparked the country’s worst riots in over a decade, as the families wept in court at horrific details of the “extreme violence” he inflicted on them.

Sentencing violence-obsessed Axel Rudakubana to 13 life terms for the three murders and 10 attempted murders, judge Julian Goose said he believed it “highly likely that he will never be released”, ordering he should serve a minimum of 52 years.

“The harm Rudakubana has caused to each family, each child and to the community has been profound and permanent,” the judge told Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England.

The judge said Rudakubana’s objective in his 15-minute spree had been the “mass murder of innocent, happy young girls”.

If he had not been stopped, “he would have killed each and every child — all 26 of them — as well as any adult who got in his way”, he said.

“He was prevented from murdering more only by the escape of other children.”

After some of the injured girls escaped, Rudakubana “returned to continue his sustained and brutal violence against two of the youngest of those children, stabbing them multiple times”, the judge added.

Sobs and gasps were heard in court as prosecutor Deanna Heer set out details of the rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July in Southport, northwestern England.

Rudakubana, then 17, was heard to say: “I’m glad they’re dead,” after he was arrested, Heer told the court.

She described how he burst into the studio in the seaside resort where a group of young girls were sitting on the floor making bracelets, listening to Swift’s blockbuster songs.

After his arrest, police found violent content on Rudakubana’s devices, including images of dead bodies, victims of torture, beheadings, cartoons depicting killing, violence and rape or which insulted or mocked different religions.

On the day of the killings, Heer said, Rudakubana searched online for information about a Sydney church stabbing earlier in the year.

He then travelled to the dance class venue by taxi armed with a 20-centimetre-long kitchen knife.

“Within 30 seconds, screams can be heard coming from within, followed by children fleeing from the building,” Heer said.

Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty earlier this week to the killings of Bebe King, aged six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, as well as to 10 counts of attempted murder and possessing a blade, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England. King was stabbed 122 times, the judge revealed.

He also admitted to the production of a biological toxin, ricin, as well as possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual. His guilty plea on Monday halted his impending trial.

“Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, undeserving way that it shattered our souls,” Aguiar’s parents said in a statement to the court.

Stancombe’s mother branded her daughter’s killer as “cruel and evil”, saying his actions were those of “a coward”.

Rudakubana was twice ordered out of court by the judge after repeatedly shouting about feeling ill. He was not in court to hear the sentence, having refused to return.

Rudakubana’s multiple appearances in court to date have been marked by his uncooperative behaviour, with the defendant repeatedly refusing to speak and declining to stand in court on Monday, where he muttered “guilty” to each of the charges.

The teenager’s rampage last July shocked the UK, triggering anti-immigrant riots in more than a dozen English and Northern Irish towns and cities, amid viral misinformation that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible.

Rudakubana was in fact born in Cardiff to parents of Rwandan origin and lived in Banks, a village northeast of Southport.

His Christian church-going parents, both ethnic Tutsis, came to Britain in the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to UK media. Their church has said they are now in hiding for their protection.

The attack has not been treated as a terror incident and he was never charged with terrorism offences — prompting criticism from some.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told families of the three girls that “we stand with you in your grief” after today’s sentencing.

Starmer added that Rudakubana had been responsible for “one of the most harrowing moments in our country’s history”.

He had vowed on Tuesday to update terror legislation “if the law needs to change”, to recognise what he called the new threat of individuals intent on “extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake”.

Meanwhile, interior minister Yvette Cooper announced a public inquiry would probe how police, courts and welfare services “failed to identify the terrible risk and danger to others that he posed”.

Living nightmare
Heer said that on July 29, dance teacher Heidi Liddle was sitting on the floor helping to make bracelets when she saw Rudakubana enter and begin “lunging through the children”.

She started pushing them towards the exit but after one of the girls ran towards the toilet she followed her and locked the door.

“Outside, they could hear children screaming, and then the door rattled. When she heard voices outside the door crying for the defendant to stop she realised that not all of the children had managed to escape,” Heer said, adding that some were stabbed in the back as they fled.

Some relatives in the public gallery were in tears. Others sat with their heads in their hands and wiped their eyes as tough security camera footage showed frightened, screaming children fleeing the scene.

In victim impact statements read to the court, one 14-year-old survivor who was stabbed in the arm said the day turned into a “living nightmare”.

“The thing I remember most about you (Rudakubana) is your eyes. You didn’t look human, you looked possessed,” she said.

Class instructor Leanne Lucas, 36, who was also injured, said since the attack she could no longer be alone at home, go to work or walk down the street.

“The impact this has had on me can be summed up by one word: trauma,” she said.

“He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey,” she added.

Failures
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the attack in the seaside resort near Liverpool on July 29, 2024.

Ten others were wounded, including eight children, in one of the country’s worst mass stabbings in decades.

The unrest linked to the killings lasted nearly a week.

Rioters attacked police, shops and hotels housing asylum seekers as well as mosques, with hundreds arrested and charged at the time and over the subsequent months.

Authorities blamed far-right agitators for fuelling the violence, including by sharing misinformation about the attacker.

Following Monday’s guilty plea and the lifting of court reporting restrictions, new information emerged about Rudakubana.

He had been referred three times to the government’s nationwide anti-extremism scheme, Prevent, over concerns about his obsession with violence.

Prevent aims to “stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism” or help rehabilitate those already involved in terror, according to the interior ministry.

He had also been excluded from school, with reports suggesting that when he was 13 he was bullied and started carrying a knife.

Social workers reportedly required a police escort when visiting him at the family home because of the perceived threat he posed.

Reports also said authorities had long known of his interest in atrocities and mass murders after he was found doing research on a school computer.

Starmer branded the apparent decision that Rudakubana did not meet the threshold for intervention by Prevent as “clearly wrong”.

Meanwhile, Cooper has pledged stronger measures to tackle knife sales online, calling it “a total disgrace” that Rudakubana was able to buy one from Amazon despite being 17 and having a conviction.