Parents knew son ordered knives online before Southport attack, inquiry hears

The parents of Axel Rudakubana told police they knew their son was ordering bladed items online before he stabbed three children to death at a dance class in Southport, a public inquiry heard Tuesday.

Counsel to the inquiry, Nicholas Moss KC, told the hearing at Liverpool Town Hall that fingerprints belonging to Rudakubana’s mother, Laetitia Muzayire, 53, were discovered on the packaging of the eight-inch kitchen knife used in the attack. His father, Alphonse Rudakubana, 49, admitted police interviews in which he said he had previously taken delivery of a bladed item — later identified as a 22-inch machete — and concealed it from his son.

Moss said the couple, who fled the Rwandan genocide and claimed asylum in the U.K. in 2002, told police they were afraid Rudakubana would attack them or his older brother if they confronted him about packages arriving at the family home in Banks, near Southport. The inquiry will examine when the family discovered the knife packaging, which was found in a carrier bag on a first-floor landing and carried Muzayire’s fingerprint, he added.

Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack on July 29, 2024, used the kitchen knife to kill six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar at a holiday dance class at The Hart Space. He pleaded guilty to murder and in January was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison; having turned 18 shortly after the killings, he was not given a whole life order.

The inquiry is investigating why police, the courts, the NHS and social services — all of which had contact with Rudakubana — did not identify or mitigate the risk he posed. Moss told the hearing that teachers, mental health practitioners and other professionals will say they took issue with the actions of the parents as Rudakubana’s behaviour deteriorated in the years before the attack.

A number of agencies had been involved with Rudakubana. He was referred three times to Prevent, the government’s programme intended to stop people from being drawn into terrorism, but cases were closed each time because he did not present a clear religious or ideological motivation. Moss said the inquiry had found Islamist-related material on Rudakubana’s tablet computers, including an image of Mohammed Emwazi, known as "Jihadi John," and passages from the Koran; he had also downloaded an Al-Qaeda training manual aged 15. The inquiry heard he consumed a large volume of violent material online and that other disturbing imagery, including Nazi content and depictions of enslavement and graphic injuries, was present on his devices.

Mental health services had cared for Rudakubana for several years but he was formally discharged six days before carrying out the killings, the court previously heard. Teachers warned as early as February 2021 that he "could easily be radicalised" and that, if radicalised, he would pose a significant risk. By the time of the attack, he had not attended school for more than two years and had been passed between social services, youth justice teams and health agencies, eventually refusing to engage.

Moss said Rudakubana used falsified age checks, including fake driving licences or his father’s details, to place online orders for knives that required age verification. Rudakubana told police he once intercepted a parcel clearly marked as containing a bladed item and hid it on top of his wardrobe despite having asked for the item. A week before the murders, Alphonse Rudakubana intervened when his son tried to take a taxi to his former school in Formby, persuaded the driver not to take him, but did not report the incident to police, the inquiry was told.

Forensic searches of the family home after the attack recovered several weapons and, according to Moss, even traces of the poison ricin in Rudakubana’s bedroom. Photographs and other material seized from devices included imagery that the counsel said appeared to encourage lone-actor violence.

Police have asked social media companies for records to establish what Rudakubana saw online in the hours before the attack. Moss said investigators had assessed that the attacker saw an Instagram post advertising the dance class and had viewed footage of a stabbing in Australia less than 10 minutes before he left home, but the inquiry has been unable to access Rudakubana’s social media accounts and has requested information from Meta, the parent company of Instagram, and from X, formerly Twitter.

Merseyside Police confirmed in June that no one who may have assisted or failed to stop Rudakubana would face criminal charges in relation to the events of July 29. The inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Adrian Fulford, will probe whether agencies missed opportunities to prevent the attack and will seek explanations from people and organisations that had contact with Rudakubana and his family.

The hearing continues.