The 18-year-old accused of killing three girls at a dance class in Southport has admitted the attack on the first day of his trial. Axel Rudakubana, of Banks, Lancashire, was to stand trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.
Follow live updates asThis is the deranged and demonic mugshot of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, who today admitted murder, possessing an Al Qaeda terror manual and making the biological weapon Ricin.
Rudakubana took their lives after he stormed a Taylor Swift-themed dance class at The Hart Space in Southport armed with a knife shortly before midday on July 29, 2024. But his shock guilty pleas denied the families of the children he murdered - and the others he tried to kill - the chance to be in the room at Liverpool Crown Court to hear him admit his guilt.
He was flanked in the dock by four prison guards, wearing a grey tracksuit and blue medical facemask. There had been no inkling to anyone the defendant would change his pleas from not guilty to guilty. Rudakubana had not stood up when asked to by the court clerk and judge after entering court - and did not reply when he was asked to confirm his name.After this brief, inaudible interaction, Mr Reiz asked for the charges to be put again to Rudakubana.
Mr Justice Goose asked Mr Reiz whether there was 'any other material you wish to go through' before he is sentenced. Mr Justice Goose said he extended his apologies to the families that 'for that reason they weren't here to hear him enter his pleas'.Rudakubana moved to Banks from Cardiff with his parents and older brother about a decade ago.
Appearing in court in August after he was first charged, Rudakubana initially smiled upon entering the courtroom, then kept his face covered by his sweatshirt for the remainder of the proceedings. In the hours after the stabbing, information spread online which claimed the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.
He said: 'This was large scale and very violent criminal activity made much worse by the fact that it was happening only a day after entirely different and utterly tragic events. Rioters smashed the windows of hotels in Rotherham and Tamworth, and set a library in Liverpool on fire. Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana showed violent behaviour in school and was excluded over hockey stick incident
Neighbours described the family as unremarkable, but it can now be reported that teachers had concerns about his behaviour. Teachers at the specialist school, which was within the borough of Sefton, were concerned about Rudakubana's behaviour and his violence towards others, it is understood. The family lived in a mid-terrace three-bedroom house in a newly-built cul-de-sac of a dozen or so properties.
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