Latest news with #SouthportMurders
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Yahoo
The photo of Axel Rudakubana which Southport victims' families want banned
The families of the Southport victims have called on the mugshot of killer Axel Rudakubana to never be shown again. On Tuesday the public inquiry into the murders of three girls at a Southport dance class opened, with chairman Sir Adrian Fulford describing the attack as 'one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history'. Fulford, a former vice-president of the Court of Appeal, said 'ordinary language fails to reflect the enormity' of the knife attack on the Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July last year, when Rudakubana murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven. The 18-year-old, who was given a life sentence in January with a minimum term of 52 years, also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes. One of the most chilling pictures from the trial was the mugshot of Rudakubana, which featured across newspapers and television following his jailing. But now, Fulford has called for the picture to be banned, saying that families found it 'significantly re-traumatising' whenever it is shown. Speaking at Liverpool town hall, Fulford called on the media to stop using the photo of Rudakubana taken after his arrest, having been 'routinely used for reporting on the attack itself and in stories regarding the perpetrator's conduct in prison'. Fulford said he had speaking with the surviving victims and their families, who find the picture 'a terrifying and singularly distressing image'. He told the inquiry: 'Indeed, seeing the face of the perpetrator, often without any warning, has the potential to be significantly re-traumatising. 'Every time this unsettling image is re-posted or re-broadcast, those responsible take on themselves the risk of causing real distress, thereby disrupting the process of rebuilding broken lives.:' Fulford urged the media to stop using the photo in question, arguing that it 'serves no credible journalistic purpose and only causes harm'. He added: 'I therefore urge all media outlets – traditional print and broadcast media, and those responsible for online reporting and on social media - to refrain from using it when reporting on our proceedings.' Mugshots are typically taken when someone is arrested and processed at a police station but are not routinely released to the public. They may be disclosed during active police investigations, such as when authorities seek public help to identify a suspect or locate a wanted individual, often shared via media or online appeals. However, in high-profile cases particularly, mugshots are usually released after someone is convicted if deemed in the public interest. Media outlets can request mugshots under specific circumstances, but police forces follow strict guidelines, and they are not automatically released. Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced the public inquiry in January to help understand what went wrong and prevent any repetition of similar incidents. Three separate referrals were made to the government's counter-terror programme Prevent about Rudakubana's behaviour in the years before the attack, as well as six separate calls to police. A review into the Prevent referrals published in February found there was sufficient risk posed by Rudakubana to keep his cases within Prevent active but that these were closed prematurely while too much focus was placed on a lack of distinct ideology. A key question for the inquiry is whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer. Fulford set out the aims of the inquiry on Tuesday, saying his focus will be 'a thorough and forensic investigation of all the circumstances surrounding the attack and the events leading up to it'. Rudakubana's history and interactions with all the relevant agencies, how they shared information and responded to the risks that he posed will also be looked into. The second phase will take place next year, where Fulford will 'consider the wider issues of children and young people being drawn into extreme violence'. The widespread rioting and civil unrest following the murders is not being examined by the inquiry. Watch: Public inquiry begins into 'horrific' Southport murders
Sky News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Southport inquiry live: Father whose 'hero' daughter was stabbed by Southport killer tells inquiry how she managed to survive
Southport murders 'one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history' Speaking on the first day of the inquiry, chair Sir Adrian Fulford said there was a "wholesale and general failure" to address the risks posed by Axel Rudakubana before the Southport attack, which he called "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history". In his opening statement at Liverpool Town Hall, Sir Adrian told a council chamber full of legal representatives, lawyers, the media and the public that "ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what [Rudakubana] did". "None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice. There are no words that adequately describe what occurred and I am not going to try, and then fail, to find them." Sir Adrian said the teenager's "known predilection for knife crime" suggests it was "far from an unforeseeable catastrophic event". The former vice president of the Court of Appeal said Rudakubana's actions "impose the heaviest of burdens" to investigate how it was possible for him to cause "such devastation". The public inquiry, split into two phases, will look into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer. Rudakubana had been referred to the government's anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders, including over research into school shootings and the London Bridge terror attack. He had also accessed online material about explosives, warfare, knives, assassination and an al Qaeda training manual. Sir Adrian said Rudakubana's "unhindered" ability to access "gravely violent material" on the internet speaks to a "wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed". He said he aims to make recommendations to ensure the best chance of stopping others "who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way".
Sky News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Southport inquiry live: Impact statements to be heard from survivors' families
Southport murders 'one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history' Speaking on the first day of the inquiry, chair Sir Adrian Fulford said there was a "wholesale and general failure" to address the risks posed by Axel Rudakubana before the Southport attack, which he called "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history". In his opening statement at Liverpool Town Hall, Sir Adrian told a council chamber packed with legal representatives, lawyers, the media and the public that "ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what [Rudakubana] did". "None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice. There are no words that adequately describe what occurred and I am not going to try, and then fail, to find them." Sir Adrian said the teenager's "known predilection for knife crime" suggests it was "far from an unforeseeable catastrophic event". The former vice president of the Court of Appeal said Rudakubana's actions "impose the heaviest of burdens" to investigate how it was possible for him to cause "such devastation". The public inquiry, split into two phases, will look into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer. Rudakubana had been referred to the government's anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders, including over research into school shootings and the London Bridge terror attack. He had also accessed online material about explosives, warfare, knives, assassination and an al Qaeda training manual. Sir Adrian said Rudakubana's "unhindered" ability to access "gravely violent material" on the internet speaks to a "wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed". He said he aims to make recommendations to ensure the best chance of stopping others "who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way".
Daily Mail
08-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Southport stabbing murders came after 'wholesale and general failure' to stop Axel Rudakubana in lead-up to attack, inquiry hears
The Southport murders were the result of a 'wholesale and general failure' to stop Axel Rudakubana in the lead-up to the attack, the chairman of the inquiry into the attacks has said. The brutal stabbings last July at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club led to the deaths of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven. Sir Adrian Fulford cited factors including Axel Rudakubana 's ability to access violent material and buy knives online at a young age, as well as his capacity to leave home unsupervised to commit the masscre. In his opening remarks, Sir Adrian said that far from being 'an unforeseeable catastrophic event, Rudakubana had a 'known predilection for knife crime ' and posed a 'very serious and significant risk of violent harm.' Over a period of more than two years, between January 2022 and July last year, he also managed to obtain an arsenal of weapons, including a bow and arrow, two types of machete, two large knives, a sledgehammer, materials to make Molotov cocktail explosives and other ingredients to make the deadly toxin ricin. The 18-year-old managed to order and buy a 20cm chef's knife using a private VPN online, but his fascination with knives was long held and had been flagged on multiple occasions. Sir Adrian cited the fact that Rudakubana had been expelled from Range High School in Formby but managed to return and attack another pupil with a hockey stick on December 11, 2019. Rudakubana was found with a knife and overheard saying he intended to kill another student during the same incident. He was referred to Prevent on three occasions, on December 5, 2019, February 1, 2021 and April 26, 2021 after being spotted researching school shootings, the Libyan military dictator Colonel Gaddafi and the London Bridge terror attack online. He was reported missing on March 17, 2022 and later stopped on a bus by police armed with a knife. Sir Adrian said it was 'of potential critical importance' that again Rudakubana said during this incident that he wanted to stab someone. The teenager killer also had a passion for violent online content, as well as an ever-growing archive of gruesome articles and books, including works on the Rwandan genocide and Nazi Germany. Additional texts included tomes on urban warfare tactics and others containing gory details about torture and cannibalism. Sir Adrian cited the fact that Rudakubana had accessed online books, research papers, information leaflets and instruction manuals, which included material about explosives, warfare and knives, including one called 'Assassination Using Poisons and Cold Steel,' and another named 'Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual' on his tablets and devices. That manual had been downloaded twice, once on August 30, 2021 and then again on September 4, 2021. A week before the attack, he armed himself with a knife and tried to return to Range High School again, on the day the school broke up for the summer holidays. Immediately before the attack, he watched a video of the violent stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Australia and five other individuals. The award-winning The Trial podcast series on the Southport murders is available now 'Furthermore, his ability, unhindered, to access gravely violent material on the internet, to order knives online at a young age, and then to leave home unsupervised to commit the present attack, speaks to a wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed,' Sir Adrian said. Opening the hearings into last July's attacks, Sir Adrian Fulford said Axel Rudakubana perpetrated 'an almost unimaginable but nonetheless mercilessly calculated' killing spree when he went on the rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club. Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died in the attack, which also left eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes seriously injured. They, and another 16 children who were at the club, also suffered significant psychological trauma, Sir Adrian said. Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, was given a life sentence, with a minimum term of 52 years - one of the highest minimum terms on record - after pleading guilty to the murders and attempted murders, plus other offences, in January. Soon afterwards, Sir Adrian, a former vice-president of the Court of Appeal, was appointed by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to carry out a 'forensic investigation' into the events on July 29. He said it was 'truly critical' that the inquiry gets answers for the families of Rudakubana's victims and makes recommendations to prevent anything similar happening in the future. The hearings will examine why several agencies, including the police, the courts, the NHS and social services, who all had contact with Rudakubana, failed to identify the risk he posed. It will also investigate whether the attack could or should have been prevented. Three separate referrals were made to Prevent, the Government's counter-terror programme, about Rudakubana's behaviour, between December 2019 and April 2021, as well as six separate calls to police. A review into the Prevent referrals, published in February, found he posed sufficient risk to keep his cases active but too much focus was placed on a lack of distinct ideology and they were closed prematurely. The inquiry will draw on evidence from interviews with witnesses and disclosure from 15 organisations, including MI5, Counter-Terrorism Policing, NHS England and Merseyside Police. Sir Adrian said 'for the benefit of the victims and their families' Rudakubana would not be named during the hearings, but instead be referred to as 'the perpetrator' or by his initials, AR. He also read out the names of the three girls who died and the 23 ciphers - the letters or numbers - that the inquiry is using for the ones who survived, but whose anonymity is protected. He has also urged the media not to use the mugshot of Rudakubana, issued by Merseyside police, in their reporting of the inquiry because of the 'distress' it caused to the young survivors. He said he had spoken to relatives of the girls present at the dance class, who had told him they found repeated use of it to be 'terrifying.' 'Seeing the face of the perpetrator, often without any warning, has the potential to be significantly retraumatising,' Sir Adrian said. He added that the continued use of the mugshot also risked 'disrupting the process of rebuilding broken lives.' As part of a moving tribute, those seated in the inquiry chamber, at Liverpool Town Hall, where the hearings are being held, were also asked to stand for a minute's silence to remember Alice, Elsie and Bebe. 'The perpetrator is responsible for one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history,' Sir Adrian said. 'However hard we try, ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what he did on 29 July last year. 'None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice. There are no words adequately to describe what occurred and I'm not going to try and then fail to find them. 'Instead, I simply observe that his crimes impose the heaviest of burdens on our society to investigate speedily but comprehensively how it was possible for AR to have caused such devastation; to analyse the decisions that were or were not taken by multiple individuals and organisations given his deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour; to identify without fear or favour all of the relevant failings; and to make comprehensive, sensible and achievable recommendations to ensure we have the best chance of intervening with and preventing others who may be drawn to treating their fellow human beings in such a cruel and inhuman way.' Sir Adrian said the first phase of the inquiry, which is expected to last until the end of the year, will focus on Rudakubana, his dealings with the relevant agencies and the sharing of information between them. It will also look into how well the risk he posed was addressed, decisions which were made or not made 'along with any missed opportunities' to stop him. Sir Adrian said that such factors, when taken together, suggested that the attack was far from being 'an unforeseeable catastrophic event,' and instead, by July last year, Rudakubana had a 'known predilection for knife crime' and posed a 'very serious and significant risk of violent harm.' He said the inquiry would need to reflect on whether 'the multi-agency handling' of risk, including the operation of the Prevent programme, was sufficient and determine whether there should be better, more effective systems in place to identify, monitor and control those contemplating such serious crimes. Sir Adrian added: 'We need to understand what went wrong and thereafter identify and implement the most effective measures to ensure, to the extent that we are able, that there is no repetition. 'As a society we are not helpless when confronted with individuals who are known to be contemplating acts of such depravity and although no solution will be foolproof, we can identify all of the robust steps which should be taken to protect ourselves, and particularly the most vulnerable, from horrors of this kind. 'This must be undertaken at speed, to provide answers for the victims and their families and to identify all of the changes that urgently need to be made.' Sir Adrian pointed out that the Prime Minister Keir Starmer previously said that Southport 'must be a line in the sand' and that 'nothing would be off the table' for the inquiry to investigate. The chairman said he was determined that the hearings would 'not turn into an exercise of papering over the cracks' but would act as a 'real engine for change.' He also said that the present Crime and Policing Bill, which has passed its second reading in the House of Commons, includes the provision of Youth Diversion Orders, which are aimed at anyone aged under 22 that is involved in terrorist offending, in order to 'divert them from the wider criminal justice system', including prosecution. But he pointed out that Rudakubana's crimes were not terror-related and the inquiry will, therefore, look closely at whether the State should be able to impose restrictions on individuals if there is strong evidence that they intend to commit serious violent crimes per se. Measures such as imposing curfews, tags, or placing restrictions on their movement or ability to use the internet and social media, or to require psychological intervention until the risk is deemed to have been reduced. Sir Adrian said he expected all organisations and witnesses taking part in the hearings to be candid and 'frank' and to 'volunteer information about errors' and things which went wrong. He said he expected his first report on the first phase of the inquiry to be completed by early next year at the latest. Rachael Wong, director at law firm Bond Turner, representing the three bereaved families, said they would be doing all they could to help Sir Adrian get to the 'truth.' 'We know that nothing the inquiry reveals or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again,' she said. 'We will be doing all we can to assist the chair through the inquiry and uncover the truth. 'It is only through intense public scrutiny that real change can be effected.' Impact statements from parents of four child survivors will be read to the inquiry tomorrow. The hearings will then be adjourned until September, when more statements from the remaining relatives of victims and survivors will continue. The second phase will look at the more wider 'troubling trend' of children being drawn into extreme violence and what can be done to reverse this, the chairman added. The widespread rioting and civil unrest following the murders is not being examined by the inquiry.
BBC News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Southport attack 'one of the most egregious crimes' inquiry hears
The Southport murders have been described as "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history" as a public inquiry inquiry will examine how the "deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour" of Axel Rudakubana, who went on to "cause such devastation" on 29 July 2024, was dealt with by public Aguiar, nine; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and six-year-old Bebe King died while eight other children and two adults were seriously wounded during the attacks at a dance studio in the Merseyside town. The first live hearings have now begun at Liverpool Town Hall, chaired by retired senior judge Sir Adrian Fulford, who said he was committed to delivering "sensible and achievable" recommendations. Sir Adrian told a council chamber packed with legal representatives, lawyers, the media and the public that "ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what [Rudakubana] did."None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice."There are no words that adequately describe what occurred and I am not going to try, and then fail, to find them." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram, and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
