Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana is feared to have been planning Britain’s first high school massacre a week before the knife rampage – but was talked out of going to the building by his father, it can be revealed.
Armed with a large kitchen knife, the teenager wore a green hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask as he left his home to a waiting taxi. It would be the same outfit he chose to wear when he went on his murderous rampage in Southport last July.
But his father Alphonse ran out after him and pleaded with the taxi driver not to take him on the 15-mile journey from the family home in Banks, Lancashire, to Range High School, in Formby, Merseyside.
There is no suggestion Rudakubana’s father knew what he is believed to have been planning at the school, but an eyewitness said: ‘There was a confrontation and Rudakubana was eventually persuaded to leave the vehicle.’
The revelation came as Rudakubana today pleaded guilty to murdering three innocent little girls and harming 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died following the attack in the seaside town on July 29, 2024.
He also admitted production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.Â
As Merseyside Police issued a chilling mugshot of Rudakubana, who will be sentenced on Thursday, it was also revealed:
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was a former pupil at the Range High but was expelled for carrying out a disturbing incident which saw him try and attack pupils with a hockey stick.
At the age of 13, the youngster was suspended for bringing a knife into school before returning with the sports equipment and wielding it at pupils, causing him to be restrained by a teacher.Â
On another occasion, pupils filmed him attempting to attack a teacher during a lesson, having to be restrained by three classmates.
Merseyside Police today issued this mugshot of Axel Rudakubana, 18, of Banks, Lancashire, after he pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to all 16 counts he was charged with
A court artist’s sketch of Axel Rudakubana appearing at Liverpool Crown Court this morning
Police officers at Rudakubana’s home on Old School Close in Banks, Lancashire, last October
Rudakubana may have chosen to target Range High School, in Formby, Merseyside, because he had been a former pupil but left after a series of disturbing incidents several years earlier
Details of the attempted high school attack on July 22 – a week before his murderous rampage in Southport – can now be revealed as Rudakubana faces the equivalent of a life sentence for murdering three girls and 10 attempted murders.
He was today branded ‘generational evil’ by professionals who tried to work with the troubled teenager after his expulsion from school over his obsession with genocidal killers and bloody dictators.
In the months before last July’s attack, police were regularly in attendance at his family’s £170,000 three-bedroom terraced house in a quiet village outside Southport in support of social workers due to the risk he posed.
‘Rudakubana rang Childline when he was 13 to say he was going to bring a knife into Range High School because he was being bullied,’ a source said.
It is not known if he was being bullied or if he ever brought a weapon into the school while he was a pupil.Â
‘They immediately raised the alarm and he was immediately excluded. He never actually brought a knife in.’
But around a fortnight later he sneaked back onto the school grounds armed with a hockey stick, apparently trying to attack children who he felt had wronged him.
Former pupils said one boy suffered a broken wrist.
Police were called after the incident in December 2019 and Rudakubana was later given a ten-month referral order by a youth court – believed to be his only brush with the law prior to last July’s atrocity.
The source added: ‘By all accounts he was a normal year 9 pupil until this happened, he was a model student.
‘The knife threat and then the hockey stick attack seem to have been the start of him becoming obsessed with the most horrific violence, eventually culminating in the attack on the dance studio.
‘That was the spark which started everything.’
A video showing Rudakubana being restrained by fellow pupils at Range High seen by the Mail is understood to have involved him trying to attack one of the children he accused of bullying him.
He then attended specialist educational units including a college in Southport which sources said he only attended ‘two or three times’.
Sources stressed that Rudakubana was raised a Catholic and there was no religious motivation around his fixation on violence or the dance studio attack.
‘He had no religious links whatsoever – he was just pure evil and wanted to hurt people,’ one said. ‘It was as simple as that.
‘I would describe him as generational evil.’
Rudakubana received regular medical assessments as well as having a social worker.
‘He was seen by multiple medical professionals, and autism was the prevailing diagnosis,’ said the source.
‘But while there was a major flag on his case because of his threat to bring a knife into school, there were no incidents of violence or carrying a weapon.
‘He became obsessed with wars, conflicts, genocides and the most appalling atrocities.
‘That’s how he came to be referred to Prevent and counter-terrorism.
‘It’s just chilling how he went from being an apparently normal year 9 kid to becoming just uncontrollably evil.
‘He tried to attack his old school a week before the dance studio attack. He booked a taxi to take him to Range High School but his dad stopped him from going.
‘He’s had no interaction with his old school from the hockey stick incident right through to last July.
‘There were no threats or anything like that, it just came out of the blue.’
After his expulsion, Rudakubana attended specialist education provision in the Southport area.
At the time of the atrocity he was on the books of a college but had only attended two or three times.
‘He just bunked off all the time,’ a source said.
Police were regularly present to support social workers attending his family home over his poor attendance.
‘Social workers who visited him always brought their own security,’ a source said.
‘It was felt that for their own safety it was better for them to have someone to keep them safe because they were so worried about what he was capable of.’
The attack on his former school would have been Britain’s first US-style high school mass-killing.
The only previous mass murder at a British school was the Dunblane massacre in 1996, when gunman Thomas Hamilton entered a primary school, shooting dead 16 young children and their teacher before turning the gun on himself.
It is still not known why Rudakubana singled out the Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance workshop held by dance teacher Leanne Lucas, which was advertised on Instagram.
At 11 years old, Rudakubana appeared dressed as Doctor Who in a television advert for BBC Children In Need, after being recruited through a casting agency, it is understood.
Police officers at Rudakubana’s home on Old School Close in Banks, Lancashire, last October
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff and moved with his family to Lancashire about a decade ago
On the day of the killings, Rudakubana donned the identical outfit he wore a week earlier, with hood pulled up over his head and face covered by a surgical mask.
Leaving his home at 11.10am, and armed with the same fearsome blade, he then booked a taxi to take him to the Ms Lucas’s sell-out event.
But this time, his parents are not believed to have been aware of his movements and there was nobody to stop him.Â
Within half an hour, two children, Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, and Bebe King, six, were dead, nine more children and two adults left fighting for their lives and dozens more lives were ruined – while Rudakubana was under arrest.
One of the critically-injured children, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, later died in hospital early the next morning.
Neighbours described Rudakubana’s family as unremarkable.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, was one of the three children killed in the knife attack in Southport
Bebe King, six, was also killed in the knife attack at The Hart Space in Southport last July
Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, was among the three little girls killed in the attack in SouthportÂ
It is understood Rudakubana attended two specialists schools, The Acorns School in Lancashire and Presfield High School & Specialist College in Southport, and teachers were concerned about his behaviour.
His in-person attendance at Presfield was less than 1 per cent, it is understood.
Rudakubana became ‘obsessed’ with sociopolitical history focusing on the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
‘It was all he would talk about, all he wanted to read about,’ said a source who worked with him.
‘Just as some children are fixated on football, they know all the players, all their stats, he was the same about genocidal killers and bloody dictators.
‘If you wanted to know about the IRA’s killing campaign or Colonel Gaddafi’s brutal regime, Rudakubana could tell you all about it.
‘He collected books and literature and read up on it obsessively. The nastier it was, the more interesting he found it.
‘The fact his family fled the genocide in Rwanda was evidently part of his obsession with violence.
‘But the Rwanda genocide was just one of many conflicts that he was fixated by.
‘It was his fascination with mass murder and atrocities which seems to have fuelled his obsession with carrying out a horrific killing himself.
‘There was no ideology behind it, he just wanted to kill as many people as possible.
‘The shock of someone so evil living in the heart of the community like that is going to take a long, long time for everyone in the Southport area to comprehend.’
At his first appearance at Liverpool Crown Court, Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, said it was understood Rudakubana had been unwilling to leave the house and communicate with his family for a period of time.
She said: ‘He was seen by the psychiatrists at the police station but refused to engage with them.’
The court was told he had no obvious evidence of mental health disorder which required diversion to hospital.
His mother, father and older brother were co-operating with police and had provided witness statements.
A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arriving at Liverpool Crown Court today
A heavy police presence outside Liverpool Crown Court for Rudakubana’s appearance today
At all of his court appearances, Rudakubana held his sweatshirt over his face and refused to speak.
When he first entered Liverpool Magistrates’ Court, he was seen to smile towards members of the press before covering his face.
A profile of his father, Alphonse Rudakubana, printed in local newspaper the Southport Visiter in 2015 said he was originally from Rwanda, a country that suffered a deadly genocide in the early 1990s, and moved to the UK in 2002.
Rudakubana, the youngest son of the family, was born in Cardiff, where neighbours of the family described a ‘lovely couple’ with a hardworking father and stay-at-home mother to ‘two boisterous boys’.
In 2013 they moved to Banks, just a few miles outside of Southport, where Rudakubana’s father trained with local martial arts clubs.
The family lived in a mid-terrace three-bedroom house in a newly-built cul-de-sac of a dozen or so properties.
At 11 years old, Rudakubana appeared dressed as Doctor Who in a television advert for BBC Children In Need, after being recruited through a casting agency, it is understood.
The now-deleted clip shows him leaving the Tardis wearing a trench coat and tie to look like the show’s former star David Tennant and offering advice on how best to raise money.
Police officers stand outside Liverpool Crown Court today ahead of Rudakubana appearing
Police officers scuffle with people attending a protest in London’s Whitehall on July 31, 2024
A car burns after being overturned during a protest in Middlesbrough on August 4, 2024
Police in front of protesters in Nottingham on August 3,2024 after the Southport killings
People take part in a vigil near to the scene on Hart Street in Southport on July 30, 2024
When Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visited to pay his respects the day after the stabbing, there were hostile shouts of: ‘How many more Starmer? When are you going to do something?’
Rudakubana’s murderous rampage left the nation stunned.
It later went on to spark rioting across the UK, with mosques and hotels used for asylum seekers among the locations targeted.
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.
The day after the rampage, thousands turned out for a peaceful vigil in Southport, but later a separate protest outside a mosque in the town became violent, with missiles thrown at police and vans set on fire.
More than 1,000 arrests linked to disorder across the country have since been made and hundreds charged and jailed.
For more on this case, search for ‘The Trial: The Southport Dance class’ wherever you get your podcasts now.Â
