There have been calls to review as “unduly lenient” the sentence handed down today to Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, who was jailed for a minimum of 52 years but could not be handed a full-life term because he was 17 at the time of the murders.
Rudakubana was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court today for the “sadistic” murder of three girls at a dance class. He had pleaded guilty to the murder of Bebe King (6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Alice da Silva Aguiar (9) – and also admitted the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults, as well as the possession of a terrorist publication – a version of an al-Qaeda training manual – and having produced a deadly toxin, namely ricin.
During questioning, Rudakubana told police: “I am glad those kids are dead, it makes me happy.
“I don’t care, I’m feeling neutral. It’s a good thing those children are dead. Literally such a good thing those kids are dead. I’m so glad the children are dead, so glad. So happy. Six years old. It’s a good thing they are dead, yeah.”
The judge said: “Rudakuban knew there was to be a Taylor Swift themed yoga and dance workshop where very young girls were to enjoy an organised party safely in an upstairs room where the organisers were to look after them.
“There were 26 children at the party, all of them happy and enjoying themselves. He targeted those children for the horrific, extreme violence he was intent upon.”
He arrived and walked straight into the building, up the stairs to where he could hear the sound of happy children. In his mind was the intention to murder as many of them as he could.
“He wanted to carry out the murder of happy, innocent young girls. Over about 15 minutes he tried to kill three of them and attempted to kill eight more. It was extreme violence that is difficult to comprehend why it was done. I’m sure Rudakubana had a settled and determined intention to kill and would have killed all 26 children.
“Many who have heard the evidence and have seen the CCTV recordings might describe what he did as evil. Who could dispute it? On any view it was at least the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
The killer repeatedly disrupted the hearing at and refused to enter the dock to hear Mr Justice Goose pass sentence. The families of the children Rudakubana murdered last July, and some of the surviving victims, gave harrowing evidence to the packed but silent courtroom.
Leanne Lucas, 36, the yoga teacher who had organised the workshop read her statement to the court in person, in which she asked: “How can I live knowing I survived when children died?”
She added: “He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey.”
A 14-year-old victim, who was stabbed multiple times but survived, addressed Rudakubana directly , saying: “Give me a reason for what you did. Arming yourself with a weapon and stabbing children. I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you are a coward.”
“Some of us are physically getting better but we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever. I want you to know that you changed mine and my sister’s lives forever but whilst you live behind bars alone I will make sure that my sister and I, and our family will do our best to move forward with our lives,” she said.
A statement from the mother of another victim, a little girl who survived the attack, told the court that her daughter was so badly injured after the knife attack that her “daddy didn’t recognise her”.
“In hospital she asked me repeatedly when she was going to die. I had to tell her she was going to be okay, over and over,” the girl’s mother said.
She also said that the little girl asked if her attacker has a family, and “if they are angry with him, “if they forgive him.”
“She asks me if I feel sad for him, or sad about what he has done. I struggle to comprehend how she is able to ask such mature questions,” the mum said. “She has survived this horror but now lives every moment of her life affected by it. Questioning why. Why did this happen to her?”
She said that the family “could never be prouder of what [their daughter] has achieved over the last six months”.
“[He] has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart. We are honoured to be her parents.”
Justice Goose said he had read all the victim impact statements and that they were “all deeply moving” – saying that the families of the three girls who had been murdered would “never recover”.
“The harm that Rudakubana has caused to each family, each child and the community has been profound and permanent,” he said.
FAMILY CALLS FOR LIFE SENTENCE
Alice Da Silva Aguiar’s family said that since her death they had lost their own lives – and that Alice’s mother “often thinks about going to meet her or hopes that life is shortened so they can be together again.”
The little girl’s mother is unable to go to the toilet at night without her husband there as she finds the dark so terrifying.
“Grief has taken away any sense of meaning we once had and replaced by constant numbness. It’s hard to feel happy, to enjoy the music and to see the good in life when the centre of our universe has been taken,” the family said.
The statement of Jenny Stancombe, mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, was read by Ms Heer KC to the court. She said the family had lost their “best friend” through an act of “pure evil”.
“We are not going to stand here and list everything you have taken away from us, because we refuse to give you the satisfaction of hearing it,” she said, addressing Rudakubana.
“The nature of your actions is beyond contempt. You deliberately chose that place, fully aware that there would be no parents present, fully aware that those girls were vulnerable and unable to protect themselves.”
“This was not an act of impulse, it was premeditated. You chose that place, that time and those circumstances, knowing that when we arrived all we would see was the aftermath of the devastation caused.
“We were robbed of the opportunity to protect our girls. If we had been there, this would never have happened and the outcome would have been vastly different.
“What you did was not only cruel and pure evil; it was the act of a coward.
She called for the killer to be given a life sentence saying he had taken her daughter’s future “and everything she could have been”.
“There is no greater loss and no greater pain,” she said. “His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief and it is only right that he faces the same”.
However, Mr Justice Goose said that Rudakubana’s age at the time of the attack mattered legally. “He was only nine days short of his 18th birthday, which has a particular significance,” the judge said.
“Had he been 18, I make it clear that I would have been compelled to impose on him life imprisonment without a minimum term, otherwise known as a whole life term, meaning that he would never be released.
“However, the law does not permit such a sentence for those offenders who are under 18 when they offend.”
CALLS FOR REVIEW
Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport, has asked the Attorney General to review Axel Rudakubana’s sentence as “unduly lenient” and said it is “not severe enough”.
Mr Hurley said: “The sentence handed down today is not severe enough, it is not long enough for the crimes committed, we need a sentence that represents the severity of this crime that has terrorised the victims and their families.
“I have submitted a review to the Attorney General to review the sentence, the undue leniency does not reflect the crimes committed and a review is required to uphold public confidence in our justice system.”
The Telegraph reported that former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland had said he also believed that courts should have “exceptional discretion” to issue them to under 18s.
He suggested that 17-year-olds who killed a month before their 18th birthday or were sentenced after they turned 18 should be eligible for whole life orders.
“You could go further and give the judge an exceptional discretion in those cases,” he said. “I would not use this case for a wholesale change and treat the children the same as adults.”