A British teenager who stabbed three girls to death in Southport will be sentenced today

A sentencing hearing for a teenager who killed three girls and injured 10 others in a knife attack at a dance class in Southport, England, began Thursday.

Judge Julian Goose, who is presiding over the case, told the attacker, 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana, that a life sentence would be inevitable after he pleaded guilty on Monday.

Mr Rudakubana appeared at Liverpool Crown Court in a gray tracksuit with a blue medical mask covering his mouth and nose. When the judge asked to confirm his name, he refused to speak and put his head on his knees.

But shortly after prosecutors began reading out details of the case, Mr. Rudakubana shouted from the dock in the back of the room: “I need to speak to the paramedic because I don’t feel well.”

The judge noted that doctors had examined Mr. Rudakubana that morning and found him fit to participate in the hearing. His lawyer said the defendant had not eaten for several days and Mr Rudakubana continued to scream for several minutes.

Judge Goose said: “These proceedings are under my control, not yours, Mr Rudakubana. Do you understand?” He then ordered Mr Rudakubana removed from court, saying: “I won’t let him get in the way.”

Before Mr Rudakubani was sentenced on Thursday, prosecutors read out details of their case against him, revealing the horrific nature of the July 29 attack. Dianna Geer, prosecuting, said he “targeted the youngest, the most vulnerable in order to spread the greatest level of fear and outrage that he could”.

She told the courtroom that when Mr Rudakubana was under arrest at the police station after the attack, he said: “It’s a good thing those children are dead” and “I’m so glad”.

Ms Geer told how he took a taxi to Hart Space, where the school held a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for six to 11-year-olds during the summer holidays.

Visual evidence shown in court, taken from CCTV footage and police body cameras, showed Mr Rudakubana arriving at the dance studio which was packed with 26 children.

He entered the building and rampaged through the room, injuring several children as well as Lianna Lucas, who was organizing the lesson. Minutes later, screams could be heard on CCTV footage before the children started to run from the building.

Some of them were covered in blood and collapsed before bystanders came to their aid. Once, the police helped a dance teacher who was locking one of the young girls in the bathroom out of the room.

Several people cried in the courtroom as the footage was shown, and some decided to leave, overcome with emotion.

Baby King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancomb, 7, were so seriously injured in the attack that they died inside the building, police said. 9-year-old Alisa da Silva Aguiar ran outside with other children, but soon fainted. She was taken to the hospital and died the next day. Another eight children and two adults were injured.

But as this horror unfolded, there were glimpses of heroism. The court heard how after Ms Lucas was stabbed in the back, she was still able to get the children out the door and encourage them to run to safety, despite bleeding badly from the wound.

Another teacher at the dance studio at the time of the attack, Heidi Liddle, also told children to run before one girl ran to the bathroom. Miss Liddle followed her inside, locked the door, and put her foot on it to protect it. She told the girl not to make a sound. Later they were safely rescued by the police.

Two window cleaners working nearby, Marcin Taion and Joel Verite, heard the commotion and rushed to the scene. Mr. Verite followed the police into the building, picked up Bebe and carried her out of the building, screaming at the severity of her injuries. Mr. Taijon performed CPR on one young victim in the street parking lot.

As Mr Rudakubana pleaded guilty on Monday, a portrait of a deeply troubled young man obsessed with violence turned out to be, as was the fact that he had been on the local government’s radar for years knife attack on July 29 in Southporta town north of Liverpool.

After the attack, Britain was rocked by a series of riots as misinformation about the attacker’s identity spread on social media and messaging apps. False claims that he was an undocumented immigrant or newly arrived asylum seeker were amplified far-right agitators. Mr Rudakubana is a British citizen born in Wales to Rwandan parents.

There was no evidence that he ascribed to any particular political or religious ideology, police and prosecutors said.

At the ages of 13 and 14, he was referred three times to Prevent, the UK’s anti-terror programme, because of his propensity for violence, but these referrals were eventually rejected as each time he was found to not meet the threshold for intervention.

This was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer from Downing Street on Tuesday that the attack is a sign that terrorism is growing in the country and that young people are being radicalized by the “tidal wave of violence that is freely available online.”

“We also see acts of extreme violence committed by loners, losers, young people in their bedrooms who have access to all sorts of material on the internet, desperate for fame,” Mr Starmer said, noting that some were “obsessed with this extreme violence , it would seem, for its own sake.”

Mr Rudakubana was also found guilty of possession of a weapon for possessing the knife used in the attack, for producing a biological toxin and for “possessing information” described as “such as may be useful to a person committing or preparing an act”. terrorism” after investigators found ricin, a deadly toxin, and a PDF file titled “Military Studies of Jihad Against Tyrants: An Al Qaeda Study Guide” in his home.

The judge will not be able to sentence him to life in prison without parole because he was 17 at the time of the attack.

In 2019, Mr Rudakuban was expelled after bringing a knife to school and returned months later to attack a student with a hockey stick. Then he was enrolled in a school for children with special needs.

A week before the attack, Mr. Rudakubana tried to go to his former high school, police said, but his father ran out of the house and begged the taxi driver not to take him. Later, the teenager returned to the house.

The case raised questions about how the authorities could have missed an opportunity to stop the violence before it started. The government has said it will hold a public inquiry into the case to better understand what happened and what needs to change. But the case also highlighted the problem of young people focused on extreme violence accessing online images and messages that fuel that obsession.