Father stopped Southport killer from going to former school week before attack

According to the BBC, Axel Rudakubana was prevented from returning to his former school a week before he fatally stabbed three young girls last July. Rudakubana's father had pleaded with a taxi driver not to take him to Range High School on July 22, from which he had been expelled five years prior.

Notably, he was wearing the same hooded top and medical mask he wore during the attack a week later. Rudakubana had been referred to the government's counter-terrorism Prevent program three times between 2019 and 2021 due to his general obsession with violence.

On Monday, the 18-year-old admitted to fatally stabbing three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July. He also admitted to a string of charges including the attempted murder of eight children and two adults, manufacturing the biological toxin ricin, and possessing an al-Qaeda training manual—a terrorism offense. Nevertheless, police have not treated his case as terrorism-related, as he did not appear to follow any ideology such as Islamism or racial hatred, but rather an interest in extreme violence.

The Home Secretary has launched a public inquiry into the attack to "establish the truth, understand the circumstances and what changes need to be made." Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said there needed to be "independent answers" about the Prevent program, and other agencies that had contact with Rudakubana. A week before the attack, Rudakubana, under the name Simon, booked a taxi to Range High School on the last day of term, but his father ran out of the house to stop him.

On July 29, he left home and again booked a taxi under the same name to the dance class where he carried out the murders. Following his guilty pleas, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) described him as a "young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence" and said he showed no remorse. Rudakubana was described as having a volatile character, anger issues, and a propensity for violence. He attended Range High School and started to exhibit violent problems in Year 9. Classmates recalled he was obsessed with dictatorial figures such as Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler and had also looked at information about the IRA.

In October 2019, 13-year-old Rudakubana was expelled from school. He later returned to the school in December 2019 with a hockey stick, attacking a student and fracturing his wrist, before being restrained by a teacher. He then attended The Acorns School, which provides specialist education for people with special needs, before being moved to Presfield High School & Specialist College. He only attended a few days of sixth form there and was mainly educated through home visits. Police were sometimes requested at home visits.

The Lancashire Safeguarding Children Partnership said Rudakubana had "difficulties re-engaging with education" after being expelled from Range High School. The organization also stated that Lancashire Police had received five calls from his home address between October 2019 and May 2022, all relating to concerns about his behavior. Last August, it was revealed he had been diagnosed with "autism spectrum disorder" and had been "reluctant to leave the house or engage with his family for some time."

Rudakubana had made multiple calls to Childline during his teenage years, eventually telling the service he was planning to take a knife to school due to racial bullying. This was one of the incidents that led to his expulsion from Range High School. The NSPCC said Rudakubana's last call to Childline was "serious enough to breach the threshold," which led to Childline reporting its concerns to local authorities in 2019.

An NSPCC spokesperson said the attack was a tragedy and that it was "vital" that any review carried out after the court case should examine "all of the circumstances and causes that led to this horrific attack" to ensure similar tragedies can be prevented in the future. Rudakubana was expelled from Range High School in October 2019. Born in Cardiff in 2006 to Rwandan parents, he moved to the Southport area in 2013.

He had studied acting at the Pauline Quirk Academy and appeared in a BBC children's charity appeal in 2018, but the organization has since said it has no connection to him. The BBC has removed the video from its website following the Southport attack. Neighbors living in Banks, West Lancashire, about 6 miles (9km) from Southport, told the BBC that police had visited his home on multiple occasions in the months before the Southport attack.

On the day of the attack, a doorbell camera captured him pacing outside his home before taking a taxi to the dance studio where he carried out the stabbings. Six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar all died. Rudakubana initially refused to speak at his hearings, and therefore not-guilty pleas were entered for him, but these were changed to guilty on Monday, the first day of his trial. He is due to be sentenced on Thursday and is expected to receive a life sentence. However, as he was only 17 at the time of the crimes, he cannot be given a whole-life order for his offences.