Teen who killed 3 girls in Taylor Swift’s dance class sentenced to more than 50 years – National

A teenager who stab three young men to death to a Taylor SwiftThe themed dance class in England was sentenced to more than 50 years in prison on Thursday for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime”.

Judge Julian Goose said of 18 years Axel Rudakubana “I wanted to try to do the mass murder of innocent and happy girls.”

Goose said he could not impose a life sentence without parole because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.

But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he spent in custody, before being considered for parole, and “it is likely he will never be released.”

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Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. Injuring eight other girls, ranging from 7 to 13 years , along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.

The attack defeated the village and left both street violence and soul searching. The government announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities several times for his obsession with violence.

The defendant disrupts the hearing

Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and additional charges of possession of a knife, ricin poison and a al-Qaeda manual. He changed unexpectedly his plea of ​​guilty on all charges on Monday.

But he was not in court to hear the sentence passed on Thursday.

Hours earlier he had been brought into the dock of Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England, dressed in a gray prison jumpsuit. But as prosecutors began to outline the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting that he felt sick and wanted to see a paramedic.

Goose ordered the defendant to be removed when he continued to scream. A person in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakubana was cast out.

The hearing continued without him.

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Horror on a summer day

Prosecutor Deanna Heer described how the attack happened on the first day of summer vacation when 26 girls were “gathered around tables making bracelets and singing Taylor Swift songs.”

Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, entered and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.

The court was shown video of the suspect arriving at the Hart Space location in a taxi and entering the building. Within seconds, screams erupted and children ran outside in panic, some of them injured. A girl came to the door, but was pulled back by the attacker. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.

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Gasps and sobs can be heard in court as the videos play.

Heer said two of the dead children “suffered particularly horrific injuries that are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another suffered 85 injuries.

A teenager obsessed with violence

The prosecutor said Rudakubana had “a long-standing obsession with violence, murder, genocide.”

“His only goal was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” he said, as the victims’ relatives watched in the courtroom.

Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard saying: “It’s a good thing that the children died, I’m so happy, I’m so happy.”

The killers have activated days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists picked up on false reports that the attacker was an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in the UK Some suggested the crime was a jihadist attack, and said police and the government withholds information.

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Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Rwandan Christian parents, and investigators have not been able to establish his motivation. The police found documents on the subjects included Nazi Germanyu Rwanda Genocide and car bombs on their devices.

In the years before the attack, he had been reported to several authorities for his interests and violent actions. All the agencies did not meet the danger that he presented.

In 2019, she phoned a child advice line to ask “What should I do if I want to kill someone?” He said he brought a knife to school because he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. Two months later, he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.

The definition of terrorism

Prosecutors said Rudakubana was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14 – once after studying school shootings in class, then for uploading pictures of the leader Libyan Muammar Gaddafi to Instagram and for research a London terrorist attack.

But he concluded that his crimes should not be classified as terrorism because Rudakubana had no discernible political or religious cause. Heer said that “his goal was the commission of mass murder, not for a particular purpose, but as an end in itself.”

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Prime minister Keir Starmer said this week that the country must face a “new threat” from violent individuals whose mix of motivations proves the traditional definition of terrorism.

“After one of the most heartbreaking moments in our country’s history, we owe it to these innocent girls and all those affected to bring about the change they deserve,” Starmer said after the sentencing.

Heartbreaking testimony from the victims

Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court, describing how the attack had shattered their lives.

Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrific.”

“I can’t give compassion or accept praise, how can I live knowing that I survived when the children died?” she said.

A 14-year-old survivor, who cannot be named because of a court order, said that while he was physically recovering. “We will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.”

“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward,” he said.

The prosecutor read a statement from Alice Da Silva Aguiar’s parents, who said their daughter’s murder had “broken our souls”.

“We were cooking for three. Now we just cook for two. It doesn’t seem right,” they said. “Alice was our purpose in living, so what do we do now?”