A teenager who killed three young girls with a knife at a dance class in England Taylor Swift was sentenced Thursday to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “wanted to try to commit mass murder of innocent, happy young girls”.
Gus said he could not impose a life sentence without parole because Rudakuban was under 18 when he committed the crime.
But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he has been in custody, before being considered for parole and “it is likely he will never be released”.
Rudakuban was 17 years old when he attacked children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing 9-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 7-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and 6-year-old Bibi King. He injured eight other girls aged between seven and 13, as well as teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.
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The attack shocked the country and started both street violence and soul searching. The government has launched a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop a killer who repeatedly went to the authorities for his obsession with violence.
Rudakuban was charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and additional charges of possession of a knife, ricin poison and al-Qaeda leadership. On Monday, he unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges.
But on Thursday, he was not in court for the sentencing.
Hours earlier, he had been brought to the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in north-west England, wearing a gray prison tracksuit. But as the prosecution began to present its evidence, Rudakubana intervened, shouting that he was not feeling well and wanted to see a paramedic.
Gus ordered the accused to be taken away when he continued to scream. A man in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakuban was taken away.
The meeting continued without him.
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Prosecutor Deanna Heer told how the attack happened on the first day of the summer holidays when 26 little girls “gathered around tables making bracelets and singing Taylor Swift songs”.
Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, burst in and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.
The court was shown video of the suspect arriving in a taxi at Hart Space and entering the building. Seconds later, screams were heard and panicked children ran outside, some of them injured. One girl reached the door, but the attacker pulled her inside. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.
Sobs and sobs could be heard in court as the video was played.
Hear said two of the children who died “suffered particularly gruesome injuries that are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls received 122 wounds, the other – 85 wounds.
The prosecutor said Rudakubana had a “long-standing obsession with violence, murder and genocide.”
“His only goal was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” she said as relatives of the victims watched in the courtroom.
Heer said that as he was being taken to the police station, Rudakubana was heard saying: “It's good that these children are dead, I'm so glad, I'm so happy.”
The killings sparked days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on false reports that the attacker was an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in the UK. Some suggested that the crime was a jihadist attack and claimed that the police and government had covered up information.
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators have been unable to establish his motivation. Police found documents on his devices on topics including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs.
In the years leading up to the attack, he had been reported to various authorities for his violent interests and actions. No agency could see the danger he posed.
In 2019, he called the child counseling line and asked: “What should I do if I want to kill someone?” He said he took a knife to school because he wanted to kill a person who bullied him. Two months later, he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.
Prosecutors said Rudakubana was brought into the government's Prevent program three times when he was 13 and 14 years old — once after investigating a school shooting in a classroom, then for uploading pictures of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to Instagram and for investigating a terrorist attack in London.
But they concluded that his crimes should not be classified as terrorism because Rudakubani had no apparent political or religious motivation. Hear said that “his aim was to commit mass murder, not for a specific purpose, but as an end in itself.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week that the country must face a “new threat” from violent people whose combination of motivations tests the traditional definition of terrorism.
“After one of the most horrific moments in our country's history, we owe it to these innocent young girls and to all victims to get the changes they deserve,” Starmer said after the sentencing.
Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court describing how the attack had destroyed their lives.
Lucas, 36, who ran a dance class, said “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness was terrible.”
“I cannot give myself sympathy or accept praise, for how can I live knowing that I survived when the children died?” she said.
The 14-year-old survivor, who cannot be named because of a court order, said she was still recovering physically. “we will all have to live forever with the heartache of that day.”
“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing we think you're a coward,” she said.
The prosecutor read a statement from the parents of Alisa Da Silva Aguiar, who said their daughter's murder “broke our souls.”
“We used to cook for three, but now we cook for only two. It doesn't seem right,” they said. “Alice was the purpose of our lives, so what do we do now?”