Axel Rudakubana, the 18-year-old who admitted to the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last year, was referred to the government’s counter-terrorism Prevent programme several times before the attack. Government sources have confirmed that he had a general obsession with violence but his case has not been treated as terror-related by the police. Though Axel was found to be involved in several charges, including producing a biological toxin, ricin, attempting to murder eight children and two adults, and possessing an al-Qaeda training manual; his actions do not seem to be motivated by any ideology such as racial hatred or Islamism but instead, his interest in extreme violence.
Pupils at Range High School in Formby claimed that Axel, who began having problems with violence in Year 9, had an obsession with brutal figures, namely Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler. He was also known to have access information about the IRA. The school excluded him in October 2019 at the age of 13 and then readmitted him in December with a hockey stick for assaulting another pupil, breaking their wrist, and being restrained by a teacher. Listless and unwilling to leave the house and communicate with family for a period of time, it was revealed in August 2020 that Axel had “autism spectrum disorder.”
He attended specialist education schools for children with extra needs, i.e., The Acorns School and Presfield High School & Specialist College, for a brief period and was largely dealt with by home visits. The school sometimes had to involve the police when they visited him. As a young teenager, Axel called Childline several times, revealing his plan to take a knife to school due to racial bullying. This incident led to his exclusion from Range High School. His last call to Childline was “sufficiently serious to breach a threshold,” which led the NSPCC to inform local authorities of its concerns in 2019.
Axel Rudakubana was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in 2007 and moved to the Southport area in 2013. He took acting classes at the Pauline Quirk Academy and appeared in a promotional video for BBC Children in Need in 2018, which has since said it has no affiliation with him. The neighbours on the street, where he and his family lived in Banks, West Lancashire, about 9 km from Southport, have told the BBC that the police visited the home several times in the months leading up to the Southport attack. He cannot be sentenced to a whole-life sentence for his crimes because he is under 21; however, Axel is expected to be given a life sentence as he is due to be sentenced on Thursday
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
