Southport child killer’s 52-year sentence sparks calls for law change

The Southport child killer will likely die behind bars after murdering three girls at a dance class but his 52-year sentence has sparked calls for law changes.

Axel Rudakubana received one of the highest minimum custody terms on record for the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed class in The Hart Space in Southport in July last year, when he was 17.

Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed and harrowing details of the attack were heard at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday.

Rudakubana also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

The 18-year-old was not present to hear Mr Justice Goose impose a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years, as he was likely to be “disruptive”.

His punishment is thought to be the longest imposed on a killer of his age.

Describing the minimum term as “substantial”, Mr Justice Goose, sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday, said he will serve “almost the whole of his life in custody”, adding: “I consider at this time that it is likely that he will never be released and that he will be in custody for all his life.”

His words were echoed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who said afterwards that the “vile offender will likely never be released”.

However, Southport’s Labour MP Patrick Hurley said the sentence was “not severe enough” and he asked the Attorney General to review it as “unduly lenient”.

He added: “We need a sentence that represents the severity of this crime that has terrorised the victims and their families.”

The Attorney General’s office said the case was referred under the unduly lenient sentence scheme – with just one request needed for it to be considered.

Due to his age at the time of the attack, he cannot legally receive a whole-life order, a punishment reserved for offenders aged 21 and over or, in rare cases, those aged 18 to 20.

A parent of one of the children who survived the attack, who cannot be named because the victim has been granted anonymity by the court, told The Sun the crimes were so horrific the killer should “rot in jail” and the “law needs changing”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, backed by shadow home secretary Chris Philp, said there was a “strong case” for amending the law to allow for whole life orders to be imposed on people aged under 18 in some cases, which the Tories “will start to explore”.

Downing Street declined to comment when earlier asked about changing the law so whole life order covers child criminals.

Reform UK MPs Rupert Lowe and Lee Anderson called for the return of the death penalty – the minimum age for which was raised to 18 in 1933, before it was abolished in 1969.

Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, also admitted possession of a knife, production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

On Thursday, he was removed from the dock in Liverpool Crown Court after he started shouting as prosecutor Deanna Heer KC began to lay out the facts of the case.

He was not in court to hear victim impact statements from the grieving families of two of the three murder victims – including Elsie’s mother Jenny, who described Rudakubana as “cruel and pure evil”.

The details of the injuries suffered by the girls was also read to the court, with Bebe suffering a total of 122 sharp force injuries and Elsie being subjected to 85.

Ms Heer said the injuries suffered by the Southport murder victims were “difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature”.

After the attack Rudakubana told police “I’m so glad those kids are dead, it makes me happy”, the court heard.

Police and the government anti-terror programme, Prevent, were put under further scrutiny during the hearing as aspects of the killer’s disturbing background were aired in court.

The court heard he had attacked a pupil with a hockey stick, used school computers to look up the London Bridge terror outrage and carried a knife on a bus and into class before he carried out the Southport murders.

Despite the wide-ranging devastation Rudakubana caused in the Southport attack, Mr Justice Goose said he “must accept” his actions did not “meet the definition of an act of terrorism”, but added: “His culpability is equivalent in its seriousness to terrorist murders, whatever his purpose.”

After the Southport attack, unrest spread nationwide, with mosques and asylum seeker hotels targeted.

More than 1,000 arrests linked to disorder across the country have since been made and hundreds charged and jailed.

The PA news agency understands Rudakubana will be held in a high-security adult men’s jail, as he has been for most of the time while on remand since he turned 18.

Even if he was released from prison, he would still remain under supervision on licence for the rest of his life – as do all murderers.

Manchester Arena bomber Hashem Abedi, 23, was handed a record-breaking 55-year minimum term in 2020 for 22 murders and attempted killings. The terrorist orchestrated the 2017 atrocity when he was 20.

Prior to that, the longest minimum term imposed on a terrorist in Britain is believed to have been 50 years in the case of David Copeland.

The 22-year-old was given six life sentences for targeting Brick Lane, Soho and Brixton in 1999 in a 13-day nail bombing campaign that left three people dead and 139 injured.