The teenager who murdered three young girls in Southport was responsible for ‘one of the most egregious crimes’ in UK history, the chairman of the public inquiry said today.
Opening the hearings into last July’s attacks, Sir Adrian Fulford said Axel Rudakubana perpetrated ‘an almost unimaginable but nonetheless mercilessly calculated’ killing spree when he went on the rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died in the attack, which also left eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes seriously injured.
They, and another 16 children who were at the club, also suffered significant psychological trauma, Sir Adrian said.
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, was given a life sentence, with a minimum term of 52 years – one of the highest minimum terms on record – after pleading guilty to the murders and attempted murders, plus other offences, in January.
Soon afterwards, Sir Adrian, a former vice-president of the Court of Appeal, was appointed by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to carry out a ‘forensic investigation’ into the events on July 29.
He said it was ‘truly critical’ that the inquiry gets answers for the families of Rudakubana’s victims and makes recommendations to prevent anything similar happening in the future.
The hearings will examine why several agencies, including the police, the courts, the NHS and social services, who all had contact with Rudakubana, failed to identify the risk he posed. It will also investigate whether the attack could or should have been prevented.
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29 last year
Sir Adrian Fulford, chairman of the public inquiry which is being held at Liverpool Town Hall
A court sketch of Axel Rudakubana appearing via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court during his trial
Three separate referrals were made to Prevent, the Government’s counter-terror programme, about Rudakubana’s behaviour, between December 2019 and April 2021, as well as six separate calls to police.
A review into the Prevent referrals, published in February, found he posed sufficient risk to keep his cases active but too much focus was placed on a lack of distinct ideology and they were closed prematurely.
The inquiry will draw on evidence from interviews with witnesses and disclosure from 15 organisations, including MI5, Counter-Terrorism Policing, NHS England and Merseyside Police.
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Sir Adrian said ‘for the benefit of the victims and their families’ Rudakubana would not be named during the hearings, but instead be referred to as ‘the perpetrator’ or by his initials, AR.
He also read out the names of the three girls who died and the 23 ciphers – the letters or numbers – that the inquiry is using for the ones who survived, but whose anonymity is protected.
He has also urged the media not to use the mugshot of Rudakubana, issued by Merseyside police, in their reporting of the inquiry because of the ‘distress’ it caused to the young survivors.
He said he had spoken to relatives of the girls present at the dance class, who had told him they found repeated use of it to be ‘terrifying.’
‘Seeing the face of the perpetrator, often without any warning, has the potential to be significantly retraumatising,’ Sir Adrian said.
He added that the continued use of the mugshot also risked ‘disrupting the process of rebuilding broken lives.’
As part of a moving tribute, those seated in the inquiry chamber, at Liverpool Town Hall, where the hearings are being held, were also asked to stand for a minute’s silence to remember Alice, Elsie and Bebe.
‘The perpetrator is responsible for one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history,’ Sir Adrian said.
‘However hard we try, ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what he did on 29 July last year.
‘None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice. There are no words adequately to describe what occurred and I’m not going to try and then fail to find them.
‘Instead, I simply observe that his crimes impose the heaviest of burdens on our society to investigate speedily but comprehensively how it was possible for AR to have caused such devastation; to analyse the decisions that were or were not taken by multiple individuals and organisations given his deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour; to identify without fear or favour all of the relevant failings; and to make comprehensive, sensible and achievable recommendations to ensure we have the best chance of intervening with and preventing others who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way.’
Sir Adrian is a former High Court judge and also served as a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He was also the Vice-President of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) until 2019.
The inquiry is examining how Rudakubana, 18, was allowed to commit such an egregious crime despite being known to several agencies, including the police, courts, social services and the NHS
Bebe King, six, was one of three girls murdered at the Taylor Dance workshop last year
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, was also at the event held at the Hart Space, in Southport
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, with a cardboard cutout of her pop hero before the fatal attack
Sir Adrian said the first phase of the inquiry, which is expected to last until the end of the year, will focus on Rudakubana, his dealings with the relevant agencies and the sharing of information between them.
It will also look into how well the risk he posed was addressed, decisions which were made or not made ‘along with any missed opportunities’ to stop him.
The inquiry chair said there were already some ‘undisputed but troubling facts’ about what had happened, including:
- Rudakubana had been expelled from Range High School in Formby but managed to return and attack another pupil with a hockey stick on December 11, 2019. He was found with a knife and overheard saying he intended to kill another student during the same incident.
- He was referred to Prevent on three occasions, on December 5, 2019, February 1, 2021 and April 26, 2021 after being spotted researching school shootings, the Libyan military dictator Colonel Gaddafi and the London Bridge terror attack online.
- He was reported missing on March 17, 2022 and later stopped on a bus by police armed with a knife. Sir Adrian said it was ‘of potential critical importance’ that again Rudakubana said during this incident that he wanted to stab someone.
- He had accessed online books, research papers, information leaflets and instruction manuals, which included material about explosives, warfare and knives, including one called ‘Assassination Using Poisons and Cold Steel,’ and another named ‘Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual’ on his tablets and devices. That manual had been downloaded twice, once on August 30, 2021 and then again on September 4, 2021.
- He had managed to order and buy a 20cm chef’s knife using a private VPN online.
- A week before the attack, he armed himself with a knife and tried to return to Range High School again, on the day the school broke up for the summer holidays. Immediately before the attack, he watched a video of the violent stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in and five other individuals.
- Over a period of more than two years, between January 2022 and July last year, he also managed to obtain an arsenal of weapons, including a bow and arrow, two types of machete, two large knives, a sledgehammer, materials to make Molotov cocktail explosives and other ingredients to make the deadly toxin ricin.
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Sir Adrian said that such factors, when taken together, suggested that the attack was far from being ‘an unforeseeable catastrophic event,’ and instead, by July last year, Rudakubana had a ‘known predilection for knife crime’ and posed a ‘very serious and significant risk of violent harm.’
‘Furthermore, his ability, unhindered, to access gravely violent material on the internet, to order knives online at a young age, and then to leave home unsupervised to commit the present attack, speaks to a wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed,’ the chairman added.
He said the inquiry would need to reflect on whether ‘the multi-agency handling’ of risk, including the operation of the Prevent programme, was sufficient and determine whether there should be better, more effective systems in place to identify, monitor and control those contemplating such serious crimes.
Police on Hart Street Southport, Merseyside, immediately after the attack in July last year
As a young boy Rudakubana starred as Doctor Who in an advert for BBC Children In Need
The award-winning The Trial podcast series on the Southport murders is available now
Sir Adrian added: ‘We need to understand what went wrong and thereafter identify and implement the most effective measures to ensure, to the extent that we are able, that there is no repetition.
‘As a society we are not helpless when confronted with individuals who are known to be contemplating acts of such depravity and although no solution will be foolproof, we can identify all of the robust steps which should be taken to protect ourselves, and particularly the most vulnerable, from horrors of this kind.
‘This must be undertaken at speed, to provide answers for the victims and their families and to identify all of the changes that urgently need to be made.’
Sir Adrian pointed out that the Prime Minister Keir Starmer previously said that Southport ‘must be a line in the sand’ and that ‘nothing would be off the table’ for the inquiry to investigate.
The chairman said he was determined that the hearings would ‘not turn into an exercise of papering over the cracks’ but would act as a ‘real engine for change.’
He also said that the present Crime and Policing Bill, which has passed its second reading in the House of Commons, includes the provision of Youth Diversion Orders, which are aimed at anyone aged under 22 that is involved in terrorist offending, in order to ‘divert them from the wider criminal justice system’, including prosecution.
But he pointed out that Rudakubana’s crimes were not terror-related and the inquiry will, therefore, look closely at whether the State should be able to impose restrictions on individuals if there is strong evidence that they intend to commit serious violent crimes per se.
Measures such as imposing curfews, tags, or placing restrictions on their movement or ability to use the internet and social media, or to require psychological intervention until the risk is deemed to have been reduced.
Floral tributes alongside a photo of Elsie Dot Stancombe as locals paid tribute to the three young girls outside the Atkinson Art Centre in Southport in 2024
Locals hold a vigil outside the art centre in rememberance of Elsiie Dot, Alice and Bebe following the attack on the dance school in Southport last July
Balloons and floral tributes were left as residents paid their respects to the three young girls last year
Sir Adrian said he expected all organisations and witnesses taking part in the hearings to be candid and ‘frank’ and to ‘volunteer information about errors’ and things which went wrong.
He said he expected his first report on the first phase of the inquiry to be completed by early next year at the latest.
Rachael Wong, director at law firm Bond Turner, representing the three bereaved families, said they would be doing all they could to help Sir Adrian get to the ‘truth.’
‘We know that nothing the inquiry reveals or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again,’ she said.
‘We will be doing all we can to assist the chair through the inquiry and uncover the truth.
‘It is only through intense public scrutiny that real change can be effected.’
Impact statements from parents of four child survivors will be read to the inquiry tomorrow.
The hearings will then be adjourned until September, when more statements from the remaining relatives of victims and survivors will continue.
The second phase will look at the more wider ‘troubling trend’ of children being drawn into extreme violence and what can be done to reverse this, the chairman added.
The widespread rioting and civil unrest following the murders is not being examined by the inquiry.