The Southport Murders: Some Thoughts

 

It's difficult to think of something new to say about the Southport murders and the sentencing of the killer - Axel Rudakubana (AR), seen above in an appropriate location. All I can do is to provide a personal perspective. When I first heard the news back in July of how the three small children -  Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine - had been slain, like everyone else, I was consumed with shock. Although I don't live in Southport now, it is still my home town and I could not believe that such a thing could happen there. It's the sort of thing that happens here in London, so I thought, remembering the London bridge and Westminster Bridge attacks. "Why", so I wondered at first, "would a terrorist want to strike in Southport?". Now, as we know, AR was apparently not a terrorist, still less a Muslim. Not that this awkward fact stopped the Fash from using the attacks as an excuse to launch racist rioting, but that's not relevant here.

What I found of interest was the way that AR conducted himself at his trial, and the weeks leading up to it. As we know, he has never expressed any remorse for his crimes. As The Guardian says: 

"The Southport killer, Axel Rudakubana, said “I’m so glad those kids are dead” after he was arrested for the “sadistic” murder of three young girls and attempted murder of 10 others".

In the courtroom, His sentencing was halted as he shouted that he felt ill before the judge ordered him to be removed from the dock. Now, this drew shouts of "coward!" from the public gallery, but it gives me pause for thought, as did the revelation (at least to me) that he had planned the attack for some time. Even his purchase of two knives from Amazon had been planned with care. It seems that he had used special software to get round Amazon's security checks. This causes me to wonder why he unexpectedly pleaded guilty and if there was another reason for his court outbursts, other than cowardice. Perhaps he simply wanted to appear to be in charge of proceedings and/or to deny the children's relatives the satisfaction of seeing him sentenced.

AR was clearly a troubled youth, as the BBC describe in some detail. It seems that the first serious signs Rudakubana was capable of serious violence towards others date back to when he was in year nine at Range High School in Formby, near Southport. From then on, as the Beeb say: 

"...over his adolescence, Rudakubana began to exhibit anger issues and a propensity for violence. When he was sentenced in January 2025, his barrister would tell the court that "something changed" in Rudakubana at the age of 13". Fellow pupils remember him being obsessed with figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan."

And the violence exhibited itself later, leading to his expulsion and returns to his old school to commit acts of violence as well as his diagnosis for Autism Spectrum Disorder. He was convicted several times for carrying a knife and, as the BBC say:

" He had involvement with local mental health services but "stopped engaging" in February 2023.
At the time of the attack, social care professionals were assessing whether the then-17-year-old needed to be offered additional care to manage his transition to adulthood".

I have been very critical of the mental health powers that be over the release of murderous mental health patients back into the community but, to be fair, I cannot see what grounds they would have had for permanent incarceration of AR. Neither did the police have any such powers. I am the first to declare that he should have been in an institution, but without grounds for putting him there, it would have been difficult to enforce.

Having said this, I expected that AR's defence team would have entered a plea of manslaughter with diminished responsibility and thought he would be sent to Broadmoor or somewhere similar. To my astonishment, that has not happened. Instead, his guilty plea has been accepted and he could well be sent to a "normal" prison. And that opens up another topic.

For if AR goes to an ordinary jail, he will be a prime target for attack by other prisoners. As we know, he has been sentenced to 52 years but, if other prisoners are successful, he might not reach the age of 70 (not that he would be released anyway - I hope). There are precedents for this. As Joe Duggan says on MSN News:

 

"In 2019, paedophile Richard Huckle, was killed by another prisoner after being attacked at Full Sutton, where he was serving 22 life sentences after admitting the sexual abuse of up to 200 Malaysian children aged between six months and 12 years. In 2010, Soham child murderer Ian Huntley had his throat slashed in HMP Durham’s Frankland Jail while Roy Whiting, who murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne, was stabbed at HMP Wakefield last year".

There will be precious little sympathy for AR, should he face a similar or worse fate. As Duggan says, he will probably lead an isolated life in a segregation unit. He will not be completely safe there, as Mark Fairhurst,  national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) trade union says: 

“Everyone will know who he is, and no matter where he is in the prison, they’ll know where he is, and they will target him. His life will be an absolute misery...You’ve got to unlock him for a phone call for exercise, so he can have a shower. And there’ll always be prisoners around when that happens. They always find a way to get to these people.”

I can find no room in my heart for Axel Rudakubana, should that happen. My sympathies lie with his victims and their families. 

By way of a footnote, it has been reported that the father of Sara Sharif, who was convicted together with his wife last month of his 10-year old daughter's murder, has already been attacked in Belmarsh Prison. The BBC reports: 

"Urfan Sharif is said to have been attacked at Belmarsh Prison on New Year's Day by two other inmates in a cell, the Sun newspaper reported. Sharif reportedly suffered cuts to his face, and it is understood he received medical treatment inside the prison. The weapon alleged to have been used in the assault was part of a tuna can".

For Axel Rudakubana, the clock is ticking.

Sara Sharif, R.I.P.