• 10.11.2025

Southport attack: Could Axel Rudakubana have been stopped?

Still from CCTV footage of Axel Rudakubana the day he murdered three girls. Photo: public domain

Plus: St Helens’ “Dream”, parking charge rows, and giant killer hornets

Dear readers — Welcome to your Monday briefing. What did you do with your weekend? We hope it was both fun and relaxing. If you read our recent report on public trust on the Wirral, those who observe might be interested to know that Upton’s Remembrance Sunday event did go ahead after all thanks to local efforts, as did the Bonfire Night displays in the North End and on the Woodchurch last week.

Anyway, there’s a veritable whirlwind of local news to catch you up on. Strap yourself in and prime those eyeballs for Merseyside’s most pressing issues and breaking news.

Catch up and coming up

If you haven’t already, you might also like to check out Laurence’s at-first provocative, then “petulant” (his words) and finally positive meditation on the Liverpudlians who built Manchester. This one attracted a lot of private emails (apparently people are shy about sharing their feelings publicly on the matter); do let us know what you think in the comments!

One story Laurence is buzzing away at at the moment (sorry) is the endlessly prophesied arrival of the Asian giant hornets. Readers, please let us know in the comments or by laurence@livpost.co.uk: have you actually ever seen one of these insectoid monstrosities on Merseyside? We are crying out for eyewitness accounts or the opinions of budding entomologists. Get in touch!

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The big story: the failures that led to the Southport attack

Top line: The families of the murdered girls have condemned Axel Rudakubana’s parents for staying silent despite knowing the danger their son posed. Meanwhile, as "virtually every agency" failed in dealing with the killer, the families’ lawyer calls for job losses.

Context: Earlier this year, Axel Rudakubana was convicted on 10 counts of attempted murder, one of producing the biological toxin ricin and one of possession of an Al Qaeda training manual, and the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.

Over the last nine weeks, the inquiry into the stabbing has heard evidence from over 100 witnesses in an attempt to get to the bottom of why such a shocking event should have befallen Southport last summer. This included two days of testimony from Alphonse Rudakubana, the killer’s father, and Dion, the killer’s brother, as well as representatives of the police, social services, and even tech giants.

What the inquest has uncovered has been startling, leading to public condemnation of individuals and institutions. Over the past week, the families of the three murdered girls have criticised the killer’s family, while their lawyer has called for people to be fired. The inquiry chair, Adrian Fulford, has described the atrocity as a consequence of “wholesale failure”. What has the inquiry heard?

Institutional failure: “Far from being an unforeseeable catastrophic event,” Fulford has said, considering Rudakubana’s known history of knife crime, the killer posed a “very real and significant risk of harm”.

The context for this quote is the litany of institutions and professionals involved in Rudakubana’s case. It stretches back to April 2019, when Rudakubana’s parents Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire sought help for their son, then aged 12. But as Axel became more violent, their relationship with professionals broke down.

Later that year, Rudakubana, then 13, admitted to taking a knife to school to attack a bully. Police officer Alex McNamee wrote in his notebook that the teenager showed “potential for huge escalation”.

By October that year, Rudakubana was permanently excluded from school. But three months later, he was arrested after returning and seriously assaulting another pupil – not the bully, but a student Rudakubana later said he actually liked. Rudakubana had been armed with a knife and a hockey stick.

Between December 2019 and April 2021, Rudakubana was referred to counter-terrorism agency Prevent three times after accessing potentially extremist material. Each time, the cases were closed. Prevent has said this was a mistake: the third referral should automatically have triggered further action.

During this time, he was never seen by a forensic psychiatrist. Attempts to have him assessed for autism were stuck in an NHS backlog until December 2020 — nearly 18 months after the first GP referral, and despite the efforts of teachers to get it processed. This meant no forensic risk assessment by Alder Hey’s child and adolescent mental health services, and no trajectory towards the possibility of greater violence was identified: violent incidents, the families have said, were treated as isolated.

The inquiry has heard that by September 2023, nearly a year before the attack, Rudakubana met the conditions for an assessment under the Mental Health Act, but this never happened. There was also never a multi-agency meeting of police, social services, probation and others, because Rudakubana was under 18.

Left to right: Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Aguiar in school uniforms. They are all smiling. — Family photos of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar.

The parents: Giving evidence, Alphonse Rudakubana, 50, admitted knowing that his son had gathered an arsenal, including a sledgehammer, a bow and arrow, machetes and other knives and a jerry can. He said he feared his son was planning to attack others, but did not alert the authorities because he didn’t want his son to be taken away.

Abused and violently attacked by his son, Alphonse became too terrified to monitor or curb Axel’s disturbing internet usage, even taking in his Amazon orders of knives. Dion, Axel’s brother, has admitted to the inquiry that he feared his father was at fatal risk, and that their parents would hide knives around the house to stop them from falling into Axel’s hands.

By 2024, the year Axel carried out the atrocities in Southport, the family had disengaged from all support. They’ve said mutual distrust led them to feel abandoned. Axel had not left the house for two years. Seven days before the Southport attack, Alphonse stopped his son from taking a taxi to his former school with a knife and a jerry can. Incredibly, the very next day, Rudakubana was discharged from mental health services after five years, the report concluding: “Poses risk to others – None.”

Alphonse has admitted he knew his son was planning on carrying out an attack, but did not alert police. He has said this has had “catastrophic consequences for which I am desperately sorry”.

A police van burning in the riots that followed the stabbings. Photo: Jack Walton/The Post

Tech companies: Amazon and X (formerly Twitter) have also come in for scrutiny. Two weeks before the attack, Rudakubana bought the 20cm knife he’d use from Amazon after amassing a user profile including searches of axes and bill hook knives. He also used VPNs and fake names to purchase smoke grenades and equipment to make ricin. Amazon executive John Boumphrey said the company could analyse suspicious purchases and report them to authorities but “typically wouldn’t do that”.

Minutes before he left for his lethal rampage, Rudakubana searched X for a video of a Sydney church stabbing in April 2024. Despite being under 18, there were no restrictions on what he could view. Asked why this footage was so freely available, Deanna Romina Khananisho, head of X’s global affairs, said that removing it wouldn’t be “justice” but “tyrannical overreach”.

Bottom line: The families of the three murdered girls have condemned Alphonse and Laetitia for their lack of taking responsibility when they knew the danger their son posed. And last week Chris Walker, the lawyer representing the families of the girls, told the BBC he expected disciplinary proceedings and "sackings".

"It's quite clear to me that if one person in the preceding five years had done their job properly then the attacks would have been prevented," Walker said. “Virtually every agency” failed in dealing with Rudakubana, he claimed.

Walker has said that "to date, we have faith in the inquiry". A report from phase one is expected early next year, with phase two expected to focus on young people who fixate on acts of extreme violence. Fulford will assess whether new state powers to restrict individuals when there is strong evidence they intend to carry out an attack, but not enough for an arrest.

Photo of the week

We love this photo of seagulls soaring over an Autumn sunset, submitted by Post reader Heather Bleasdale last week. “I was sitting next to my 92-year-old dad on the low wall, while he was playing his harmonica, with a hat on the ground in front of him collecting money for the local foodbank,” she explained to us.

We’re always keen to feature photos from our readers — if you have a snap you’d like to share please email it to editor@livpost.co.uk for a chance to be featured in our Monday editions.

Your Post briefing

These two pieces about locals feeling disrespected caught our eye. Firstly (and at the risk of exposing ourselves to readers with a keen eye for typos) residents in Kirkby have been annoyed by multiple road signs misspelling the town’s name as “Kirby”. Of course, that’s not all Kirkby’s residents have to complain about — as anyone who read our recent report into housing issues in the town will attest to — but it will no doubt add to locals’ feelings of neglect.

And secondly, this excellent story by Claire Hamilton about artist Jaume Plensa’s “Dream” sculpture, and the group of ex-miners who were instrumental in bringing it to St Helens, says it is being "hidden away" rather than celebrated. It’s a wonderful piece of public art, which Laurence was surprised to discover when reporting about St Helens in January. Why is Dream being hidden away? Isn't it Merseyside’s answer to the “Angel of the North”?

You may remember that back in July, the city council ended free parking in the city centre after 6pm, despite almost 90% of respondents to a consultation saying they were opposed to the move. Well, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has just published this interesting update. Fiona Hornsby, who co-owns the Bridewell, the Denbigh Castle and the Pen Factory with her husband Dominic, told the LDRS that "the pre-theatre crowd has completely dropped off" and "we're trying to do things to adapt but it'll never fill the gap”, and other Hope Street entrepreneurs make similar comments in the article. And speaking of the parking charges...