This is the moment Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana was stopped by his father from boarding a taxi to carry out a high school massacre a week earlier.
Merseyside Police have released footage showing how Rudakubana attempted to set off from his home in Banks, Lancashire, to Formby in Merseyside 15 miles away.Â
His father Alphonse, whose family moved to Britain from Rwanda in 2002, is seen intervening and persuading his son to get out of the car and return indoors.Â
The 17-year-old booked a taxi from his home to Range High School in Formby on July 22 last year, wearing the same green hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask he would have on during the dance class attack a week later.
It is feared he was planning a high school massacre, although police say there was ‘no evidence’ he had a knife with him.
An eyewitness said: ‘There was a confrontation and Rudakubana was eventually persuaded to leave the vehicle.’ Rudakubana then went back inside.Â
There is no suggestion Rudakubana’s father knew what he is believed to have been planning at the school on July 22.
The video has been revealed as as Rudakubana, now 18, was this afternoon given a life sentence with a minimum of 52 years in prison after murdering three young girls in Southport last year – with trial judge Mr Justice Goose saying it was ‘not likely he will ever be released’.
Police have said that on July 29, the day of the murders, Rudakubana ‘changed his routine’ in response to having been intercepted by his father a week earlier.
On this occasion, instead of booking a minicab to the house, he walked to a nearby bus stop and then called a taxi to take him to Southport, a 15-minute drive away.
Rudakubana’s family have been left ‘devastated’ by the atrocity he inflicted and are now in hiding after police moved them for their own safety, a church attended by his father revealed this week.
The video from July 22 has emerged as Rudabukana was today being sentenced after admitting the murders of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year.Â
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.
Rudakubana also admitted, on Monday this week at Liverpool Crown Court, the attempted murder of eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.Â
And he further pleaded guilty to possession of a knife on the day of the attack, production of a biological toxin – ricin – on or before July 29.
He also admitted possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
Revelations earlier this week following Rudakubana’s guilty pleas included:
Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, had moved in 2013 to the Merseyside seaside resort of Southport where his father Alphonse – a former soldier in the Rwanda Patriotic Front – worked as a taxi driver.
Rudakubana 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.
On another occasion, pupils filmed him attempting to attack a teacher during a lesson, having to be restrained by three classmates.
His planned attack on his former school, stopped by his father’s intervention as shown in the newly-released video, would potentially 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.
In the months before Rudakubana did carry out last July’s Southport murders, 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.
‘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.‘
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, with a source saying: ‘He just bunked off all the time.’
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.’
Alphonse is a taxi driver who started a company called Redknapp Ltd in December 2018, when he listed his job as ‘trader’ and nationality as British.
The business activity of the company was given as retail sales via mail order or via the internet, as well as accounting and auditing activities and bookkeeping activities.
An article in the Southport Visitor described how Alphonse had passed his black belt in karate, saying he had started training in his native Rwanda in 1996, where he had studied for around three years before moving to Britain in 2002.
He continued to train in Cardiff with the Welsh Shotokan Karate Union at three different clubs before he moved to Southport in 2013, where he continued his training at the West Lancashire Karate Academy.
He travelled all over the UK to benefit from training under the top instructors from the Kase Ha Academy, according to the article, and represented the West Lancs Academy at the ESA National Kata Championships in Grimsby in 2013.
The article added: ‘It has been a long road for Alphonse, spanning nineteen years, two continents and three countries, but he firmly believes passing his dan grade was one of the greatest achievements of his life.’
Accompanied by pictures illustrating him putting his skills into effect, it said he had ‘cut a swathe through his opponents using a range of excellent kicking, punching and sweeping techniques’.
An update on Rudakubana’s family was provided earlier this week by the leaders of the Community Church in Southport, Dave Gregg, Geoff Grice, Harry Pickett and Mike Rothwell.
They told MailOnline in a statement: ‘The family was saddened and shocked at the terrible attack that took place in Hart Street this summer.
‘This tragedy and the devastating murder of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, has impacted our town and nation.
‘Axel was born and went to school in the United Kingdom, he has autism and is known to have struggled with mental health issues. ‘Prior to the major incident in Southport, he had been living with his parents in the village of Banks near Southport.
‘There has been the inevitable speculation about his family and background – with his father Alphonse being named in the national press.
‘It has also been reported that his parents are both Christians and attend a local church.
‘To prevent unnecessary intrusion into other churches in our town, we can confirm that over the last few years Alphonse Rudakubana has been a valued part of The Community Church family.
‘For the sake of clarity, Alphonse’s son has never attended our Sunday gatherings, nor played any active part in church life.
‘As a consequence we have nothing further to say other than the detail given in this statement.
‘The Rudakubana family have been devastated following this terrible incident and they have been moved by the police, for their protection, from their home in Banks to a secret location that we are unaware of and we have had no contact with them since Axel was arrested and charged.’
Today’s sentencing hearing was disrupted this morning as Rudakubana turned to a dock officer and said: ‘I’m not fine, I feel ill.’
He shouted repeatedly: ‘I need to speak to a paramedic, I feel ill. You’re not giving me any support judge, I feel ill.’
When the judge tried to carry on with the case, Rudakubana shouted: ‘Don’t continue. I can’t remain quiet. I haven’t eaten for 10 days. I feel ill. I’m not going to remain quiet.’
A family member shouted ‘coward’ as Rudakubana left the dock after Mr Justice Goose ordered officers to take him out of court.
The prosecution continued reading their opening note, with the judge saying Rudakubana would be returned to court to receive his sentence.
Prosecutors said the fiend carried out a ‘pre-meditated, planned knife attack upon multiple victims, principally young girls, intending to kill them’ and inflicted injuries that were ‘difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature’.
As he was being held in a custody suite after the killings, Rudakubana told officers ‘I’m glad they’re dead’, they added.
