The sentencing hearing for the teenager who killed three young girls and injured 10 others last summer in a knife attack at a dance class in Southport, England, began Thursday.
Judge Julian Goose, who is presiding over the case, told the attacker, Axel Rudakubana, 18, that a life sentence would be inevitable after he pleaded guilty on Monday.
Mr. Rudakubana appeared at Liverpool Crown Court wearing a gray jumpsuit, with a blue medical mask covering his mouth and nose. When asked by the judge to confirm his name, he refused to speak and put his head in his lap.
But soon after, as prosecutors began reading the details of the case, Mr. Rudakubana screamed from the dock at the back of the courtroom, “I need to speak to a paramedic because I feel sick.”
The judge noted that medical specialists had examined Mr. Rudakubana that morning and he was deemed fit to attend the hearing. His lawyer said that the defendant had not eaten for several days and Mr. Rudakubana continued to shout for several minutes.
Judge Goose said: “These proceedings are being conducted under my control, not yours, Mr Rudakubana. Do you understand?” He then ordered Mr Rudakubana out of court, saying: “I will not have him disturbed.”
Before the sentencing of Mr. Rudakubana on Thursday, prosecutors read out the details of their case against him, revealing the harrowing nature of the July 29 attack. Deanna Heer, a lawyer for the prosecution, said it “targeted the youngest, the most vulnerable to spread the greatest level of fear and outrage, which it succeeded.”
He told the courtroom that while Mr. Rudakubana was in custody at the police station after the attack, heard saying, “It’s a good thing these kids are dead” and “I’m very happy.”
Ms. Heer recounted how he had traveled by taxi to Heart Space, where a sold-out Taylor Swift-themed dance class for 6- to 11-year-olds was being held during the summer from school.
Visual evidence presented in court, taken from CCTV footage and body cameras worn by police, showed Mr. Rudakubana arriving outside the dance studio which was filled with 26 children.
He entered the building and rampaged through the room, stabbing several children as well as Leanne Lucas, who had organized the lesson. Moments later, the screams could be heard on exterior CCTV footage, before the children started running from the building.
Some were covered in blood and collapsed before bystanders came to their aid. At one point, a dance teacher who had shielded one of the young girls in a bathroom was seen being helped out of the room by police.
Several people cried in the courtroom as the footage was shown and several chose to leave, overcome with emotion.
In the attack, injuries suffered by Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, were so severe that they died inside the building, police said. Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, ran outside with the other children but soon collapsed. He was taken to hospital and died the next day. Eight other children and two adults were injured in the attack.
But as the horror unfolded, there were flashes of heroism. The court heard how after Ms Lucas was stabbed in the back, she managed to get the children out the door and urge them to run for safety, despite bleeding from a serious wound.
Another teacher at the dance studio at the time of the attack, Heidi Liddle, also encouraged the children to leave, before one girl ran to the bathroom. Mrs. Liddle followed her in, locked the door, and braced her leg against it to protect them. He told the girl not to make a sound. They were later rescued safely by the police.
Two window cleaners working nearby, Marcin Tyjon and Joel Verite, heard the commotion and rushed to the scene. Mr. Verite followed the police into the building, picked up Bebe and carried her out of the building, screaming as she did so due to the severity of her injuries. Mr. Tyjon performed CPR on a young victim in a parking lot outside.
Since Mr. Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday, a portrait of a deeply troubled young man obsessed with violence emerged, as did the fact that he had been on the radar of local authorities for years before the July 29 stabbing in Southport, a town north of Liverpool.
After the attack, Britain was rocked by a series of riots as misinformation about the attacker’s identity swirled on social media and messaging apps. False claims that they were undocumented migrants or newly arrived asylum seekers were fueled by far-right agitators. Mr. Rudakubana is a British citizen born in Wales to parents of Rwandan descent.
There was no evidence linking him to any particular political or religious ideology, police and prosecutors said.
At the age of 13 and 14, he was referred three times to Prevent, a British anti-terror programme, because of his preoccupation with violence, but these referrals were eventually dropped because each time he was determined not to meet the threshold for intervention.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said from Downing Street on Tuesday that the attack was a sign that terrorism in the country is evolving and that young people are being radicalized by “a tidal wave of violence available for free on the internet”.
“We also see acts of extreme violence committed by lone, misfit, young men in their bedroom, who have access to all kinds of material on the internet, desperate for fame,” said Mr. Starmer, noting that some were “fixated on this extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake”.
Mr. Rudakubana was also convicted on a weapons charge for possessing the knife used in the attack, for producing a biological toxin and for “possession of information” described as “something likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act. of terrorism” after investigators found ricin, a deadly toxin, and a PDF file titled “Military Studies in Jihad Against Tyrants: The Al Qaeda Training Manual” in his home.
The judge will not be able to sentence him to life in prison without parole because he was 17 at the time of the attack.
In 2019, Mr. Rudakubana was expelled for bringing a knife to school and a few months later returned for attacking a student with a hockey stick. He was then enrolled in a school for children with special needs.
A week before the attack, Mr. Rudakubana tried to travel to his former high school, police said, but his father ran out of the house and begged the taxi driver not to take him. Finally, the teenager returned home.
The case has raised questions about how authorities may have missed opportunities to stop the violence before it started. The government said it would hold a public inquiry into the case to better understand what happened and what needs to change. But the case has also highlighted the issue of young people becoming fixated on extreme violence and accessing images and messages online that fuel that obsession.
