A senior UK cabinet minister has said he hopes the Southport killer will never leave prison and confirmed that “nothing is off the table” in possible reforms to sentencing as a result of the attack.
On Thursday, Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to 52 years in prison for the murder of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, at a dance class last July, the attempted murder of eight others, as well as two adults who tried to save them. He avoided a whole-life term because he was 17 at the time of the murders.
The defence secretary, John Healey, said Rudakubana should stay in prison for the rest of his life as ministers reviewed sentencing guidelines.
Asked on Sky News if a life order should be used for murderers who were close to the age of 18, Healy said: “The judge passed a sentence yesterday of 52 years and made it clear that he doesn’t think that Rudakubana will ever get out of prison, and I hope that is the case.”
The Labour MP for Southport, Patrick Hurley, said the sentence was “unduly lenient”. Writing on X he said he had asked the attorney general, Richard Hermer, to urgently review Rudakubana’s sentence, “with a view to making sure he is never released … My community deserves nothing less.”
Healey said: “The prime minister is right to say: ‘Now nothing is off the table.’ We need to make any changes that are necessary. That means that we don’t just get justice for these victims but we get the changes that they deserve, and we will deliver that.”
He also expressed horror at the details of the attack, which were read to Liverpool crown court on Thursday.
Healey said: “I think this is a day of shock for us all as we heard the details in the court and the sentencing yesterday. I felt it actually hard to catch my breath when I read about the details and about the unbelievable savagery of this man who killed Bebe and Elsie and Alice.”
He said Rudakubana would have killed many more young girls had he not been stopped. Healey said: “Quite clearly, [he] would have killed the other 26 young girls in that dance class if he’d been able to.”