Southport killer ‘trying to retraumatise families from cell’, says lawyer

Comment follows news Axel Rudakubana was transferred from prison to psychiatric hospital

The lawyer for the families of Axel Rudakubana’s victims has said the Southport killer is “trying to retraumatise the families from his cell” after it emerged he had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital .

Rudakubana, now 19, was given a life sentence for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults.

The Guardian revealed on Thursday that Rudakubana had been transferred to the high-security hospital Broadmoor from the category A prison Belmarsh after it was concluded that he could not be managed safely in jail.

Next Wednesday marks two years since he carried out the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July 2024, which was followed by largely far-right riots that spread across the country.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that Rudakubana had been transferred from prison to the psychiatric facility Broadmoor hospital.

A spokesperson for the department stressed it did not alter the killer’s 52-year sentence.

Chris Walker, who is representing the three bereaved families, told BBC Breakfast: “It’s a deep concern of mine that this is a pattern starting to develop by him trying to retraumatise the families from his cell, and it’s a deep concern that this is going to occur every anniversary.”

He added that there was “no suggestion” that Rudakubana was under any form of “psychosis” when he carried out the murders.

The families were informed of the decision in a letter on 22 July but were not given details on why the transfer happened.

Walker said: “With the vacuum of information, the concern is that he’s manipulating the situation to his own benefit. For it to come out the week before the anniversary seems coincidental to us.

“Whether that’s been poorly handled by the government, or whether it’s designed by him.”

Sally Jameson, a housing minister and former prison officer, said on Friday that Rudakubana would be returned to prison “as soon as possible” but that she was not familiar with why the decision had been taken to move him.

Alder Hey children’s NHS foundation trust previously confirmed Rudakubana had been under its care as a mental health patient between 2019 and 2023, when he “stopped engaging”. He was referred to them after taking a knife to school and later saying he had done so “to use it”.

He was also referred to the UK’s counter-extremism programme, Prevent, because he had been researching school massacres on a computer at his next school, the Acorns.

There were two other referrals to Prevent, but none were progressed as Rudakubana had no clear ideology behind his obsession with violence.

Offenders who present an increased risk, and cannot be managed safely in a prison environment because of mental disorders, can be moved to secure psychiatric units.

People in these units are treated as patients rather than prisoners.

Broadmoor, in Crowthorne, Berkshire, is the oldest of England’s three high-security psychiatric hospitals. It has been used to hold some of the UK’s most notorious murderers including Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.

Patients remain locked up, with conditions heavily regulated by strict physical security including locked wards, monitored by staff and 24-hour CCTV. They receive mandatory therapeutic and rehabilitative programmes. If offenders no longer require treatment in hospital, the 1983 Mental Health Act provides for a swift return to prison.

Walker said: “When he did what he did, it was carefully planned, it was meticulous and it was designed to cause the maximum distress to society. There’s no evidence of any mental health disorder being a component of his crime. There’s no evidence of psychosis.

“The families say, given that, he needs to serve a prison sentence, he should not be going to hospital. He needs to be in prison.”