When Axel Rudakubana climbed into a taxi on 29 July 2024, the country had no clue of the horrors he was about to unleash on the town of Southport – or the resulting backlash which would see riots erupt across the UK.
Wearing a green hoodie, a surgical face mask and armed with a kitchen knife, the 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the Hart Space, where he ambushed a class of girls aged between six and 11 who were starting their summer holidays at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Merseyside.
The frenzied attack, launched at around 11.50am, was described as like a scene from a disaster film when he targeted the screaming girls while a teacher and a grandfather nearby bravely tried to defend them.
Two of the girls, Bebe King, aged six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, were declared dead shortly after, while Alice da Silva Aguiar, aged nine, later succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
Eight more children suffered stab wounds and five were left in critical condition.
On the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court the following year, the violence-obsessed teen pleaded guilty to murdering the three girls, after dramatically changing his plea.
He also pleaded guilty to 10 charges of attempted murder, as well as producing the deadly poison ricin and possession of a PDF file containing Al-Qaeda material found by police.
The killer, who was excluded from mainstream school, had been referred to the government’s counterterrorism Prevent programme several times before the attack amid concerns over his fixation with violence.
However, officials said the incident – which sparked a string of far-right riots and civil unrest across the country – was not being classed as a terror attack because he was not inspired by any terrorist ideology.
Searches of the three-bedroom home he shared with his father, a minicab driver, his older brother and stay-at-home mother revealed how the autistic teenager had grown obsessed with violence.
Police discovered an unknown substance, which was later found to be the homemade poison ricin, and a PDF file titled Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants, the al-Qaeda Training Manual.
Ricin is a plant toxin that is extracted from the beans of the castor oil plant. It is very toxic and even the smallest amounts can be deadly if inhaled, injected or ingested.
Rudakubana had been excluded from secondary school over allegations he was carrying a knife and later returned to attack someone with a hockey stick.
One former classmate told The Guardian he was a “ticking time bomb”, while others told The Times he was an odd pupil who would be disruptive in class, to the point that the phrase “doing an Axel” had become common among the class.
Just a week before his attack, he booked a taxi to take him to Range High School in Formby, which reportedly expelled him in 2019, but his father stopped him from leaving.
Ursula Doyle, deputy chief crown prosecutor with CPS Mersey-Cheshire, described the onslaught on 29 July as a “meticulously planned rampage” carried out by a killer with a“sickening” interest in death and violence.
Rudukabana’s youngest victim Bebe died after attending what had been advertised as a fun morning of making bracelets, dancing to Taylor Swift and yoga.
Speaking of their heartbreak, her devastated parents said: “No words can describe the devastation that has hit our family as try to deal with the loss of our little girl Bebe.”
The family of Elsie Dot said she was a “devoted Swiftie” who loved dancing and cheerleading.
“Elsie spent every day just simply enjoying life with determination, persistence, love and kindness,” they said. “Elsie was an amazing little girl. She had the ability to light up any room that she entered, she was truly unforgettable.”
In a eulogy read as hundreds of mourners gathered at Alice’s funeral, the nine-year-old’s parents questioned if she had called out for them in her final moments.
“We wonder if you ever thought of us, called for us, we wonder if you felt any pain,” they said. “We hope not my darling.”
They said they would “never get over this pain” but promised to “get all the answers” about what happened.
Within hours of the tragedy, a violent protest erupted outside a mosque in Southport as misinformation about the teenage attacker’s identity spread online.
The unrest soon spread with far-right riots breaking out across the country. More than 1,000 were arrested and hundreds charged over the unrest, which included a bid to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers.
A judge later lifted reporting restrictions allowing the press to name the suspect due to his age to stop misinformation from continuing to be spread “in a vacuum”.
The 18-year-old was sentenced to life with a minimum of 52 years for the horrific attack.
