A UK teenager who stabbed 3 girls to death in Southport will be sentenced today

The sentencing hearing for the teenager who killed three girls and injured 10 others last summer in a knife attack at a dance class in Southport, England, began Thursday.

Judge Julian Goose, who presided over the case, told the attacker, Axel Rudakubana, 18, that a life sentence would not be avoided after he pleaded guilty on Monday.

Mr. Rudakubana appeared at Liverpool Crown Court wearing a gray sweatsuit, with a blue mask covering his mouth and nose. At first he refused to speak and put his head in his lap, but when the prosecutors started reading the details of the case, Mr. Rudakubana screamed, “I need to talk to the emergency services because I’m sick.”

The judge noted that medical experts had examined Mr. Rudakubana that morning decided that he was ready to go to trial. He continued to scream for several minutes.

Judge Goose said: “This trial is being conducted by me, not yours, Mr. Rudakubana. Do you understand?” He then ordered that Mr. Rudakubana be removed from the court, saying, “I will not make him interfere.”

The prosecutors continued to read the details of the case against them, revealing the sad nature of the attack on July 29. Deanna Heer, the prosecutor’s lawyer, said that “he directed the youngest, most vulnerable to spread the greatest level of the prosecutors. fear and anger, which he succeeded in doing.”

He told the court that when Mr. Arrested at the police station after the attack, Rudakubana was heard saying, “It’s a good thing those children are dead” and “I’m very happy.”

Mrs. Heer recounts how he took a taxi to Hart Space, where Taylor Swift’s sold-out dance class for 6- to 11-year-olds was on during the summer break from school.

Visual evidence presented in court, taken from CCTV footage and body cameras worn by police, showed Mr. Rudakubana arrived outside the dance floor which was full of 26 children.

He entered the building and burst into a room, stabbing several children and Leanne Lucas, who had organized the class. Moments later, a sound was heard on the CCTV footage outside, before the children started running from the building.

Some were covered in blood and fell before anyone could help them.

Many people burst into tears in the courtroom when the video was shown, others chose to leave overcome by emotion.

Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, were so badly injured that they died inside the building, police said. Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, ran outside with other children but soon collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital and died the next day. Eight other children and two adults were injured in the attack.

But amidst the fear, there was also bravery. The court heard that after Ms Lucas was stabbed in the back, she managed to get the children out the door and urged them to run for safety, as she was bleeding profusely from the severe wound.

Another teacher who was on the dance floor at the time of the attack, Heidi Liddle, also encouraged the children to run, before another girl ran towards the toilet. Mrs. Liddle followed him inside, locked the door and braced her foot to protect them. He told the girl not to turn off the sound. The police later rescued them.

Two window cleaners working nearby, Marcin Tyjon and Joel Verite, heard the commotion and rushed to the scene. Mr Verite followed the police into the building, took Bebe out of the building, screaming as he did so due to the severity of his injuries. Mr. Tyjon gave Alice CPR in the parking lot outside.

Ms Lucas, in a statement read to the court, said her injuries had affected her physically and mentally.

“I, like the girls, have scars that we can’t see, scars that we can’t get rid of,” she said, adding, “To find out that he always intended to hurt the vulnerable is incomprehensible. To Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the girls who are still alive, I survive because of you.”

Since Mr. After Rudakubana pleaded guilty, a picture has emerged of a troubled teenager plagued by violence, as is the fact that he was on the radar of local authorities for years before the attack in Southport, a town north of Liverpool.

Following the attack, a series of anti-immigrant riots broke out in Britain after anonymous information about the perpetrator’s identity spread on social media and messaging apps. False claims that you are an undocumented immigrant or a newly arrived asylum seeker are being promoted by right-wing activists. Mr. Rudakubana is a British citizen who was born in Wales to Rwandan parents.

At the ages of 13 and 14, he was sent three times to Prevent, Britain’s counter-terrorism programme. The first was a study of school shootings in the middle of the classroom, in 2019. In 2021, he was posted for uploading pictures of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, on his Instagram account, and researching the London Bridge terrorist attack. But that referral was eventually dropped because it was always determined that he did not meet the intervention threshold.

There is no evidence that he is affiliated with any political or religious ideology, police and prosecutors said. The contents found on the computer and tablets of Mr. Rudakubana has shown a long-standing fascination with violence, murder and genocide.

These included a history of Nazi Germany, reports on violence in modern-day Sri Lanka, documents on the war in Chechnya, a book on family cleansing in Somalia, academic reports on the genocide in Rwanda, and a paper on the punishments used on people who were enslaved in 18th-century British plantations..

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday that the attack was a sign that terrorism in the country was emerging, and that young people were being victimized by a “wave of free violence on the internet.”

Mr. Rudakubana was also convicted of producing biological poison, after investigators found ricin, a deadly chemical, under his bed, and “having information” defined as “of a kind that may be useful to a person who is committing or preparing for a certain act.” terrorism,” because he had downloaded a PDF file titled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al Qaeda Training Manual.”

The judge cannot sentence him to life in prison without parole, because he was 17 years old when he was attacked.

The case has raised questions about how authorities missed opportunities to stop violence before it started. The government said it will conduct a public inquiry into the case to better understand what happened and what needs to be changed. But the case also highlighted the issue of young people primed for extreme violence accessing online images and messages that fuel that addiction.