Kemi Badenoch calls for parents of Southport killer to be deported

Elsie Stancombe, seven, and six-year-old Bebe King along with nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, were murdered by Axel Rudakubana at a dance class in July 2024.

The killer, then 17, also attempted to murder eight other children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as well as class instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes.

Yesterday, a report found the killing "could have been prevented" and identified "catastrophic" parental and local authority failings with a "merry-go-round" of referrals, assessments and "hand-offs" between agencies failing to stop the "predictable and preventable" attack.

Responding to the report, the Tory leader said in a social media post: "Rudakubana's parents knew their son was stockpiling weapons and planning an attack.

"They chose silence. Three little girls paid with their lives."

She went on: "As I said yesterday morning, they should face the consequences of their actions, or indeed their inaction.

"If they escape criminal charges on a technicality, the Government should deport them."

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Merseyside Police said Rudakubana's parents - Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire - who were granted asylum in the UK in 2003 after fleeing the Rwandan genocide, would not face criminal charges.

"There is no current legal duty on bystanders and/or parents to warn or report criminality," a spokesman said.

Rudakubana is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years for his crimes.

Ms Badenoch also said in a video in a social media post: "These were people who were refugees in our country, they fled a horrific genocide, they know what violence looks like and when they saw that someone in their household was very likely to do the same to other people's children they did nothing.

"I think that is appalling, I think they have a lot of questions to answer.

"I think we should look at every possible avenue, to look at what we can do if not from a criminal side, then potentially even from an immigration side."

She also called on them to say sorry to the British public.

The killer’s father had failed to stand up to their son or set boundaries and though inquiry chairman Sir Adrian recognised they had struggled to deal with him, they also bore “considerable blame”.

He added: “However, they had knowledge that he had purchased some weapons, and they knew he had tried to leave the house to carry out some form of attack at his old school just one week prior to the fatal attack, when there was a real risk that he was armed with a weapon.

“They also knew of empty knife packaging once the perpetrator left the family home on the day of the fatal attack.”

'Catastrophic'

The inquiry chairman also said the “extreme and very particular depravity” of the killings was unprecedented in the UK.

Rudakubana was not suffering from mental illness but instead, from his early teens, he had been fixated with extreme violence, fed by spending the majority of his time online, unsupervised by his parents, viewing disturbing content.

“Over a long period of time, [Rudakubana] had become an aggressive, near-total recluse, who bullied and threatened his family and unashamedly lied to officials,” Sir Adrian said.

“One of the most striking conclusions from this inquiry’s extensive investigation is the sheer number of missed opportunities over many years to intervene meaningfully, which directly contributed to the failure to avert this disaster.“Numerous systems that should have provided oversight, assessment and protection were ineffective or inadequately used.

“Some failed outright. The consequences were catastrophic.”

The inquiry heard between 2019 and 2024, Rudakubana was referred to anti-terror programme Prevent three times, but the referrals were closed.

He purchased a number of weapons, including three machetes, online as well as ingredients he used to make the poison ricin.

Sir Adrian said as time passed, interaction between Rudakubana and organisations became “at best, something of a token”.

He said: “They were unaware of his continuing chilling internet preoccupations and his accumulation of lethal weapons, as well as the ingredients for a lethal poison.

”The inquiry also found that there was a "critical failure" in information sharing between agencies, with key information "repeatedly lost, diluted or poorly managed across agencies".

There was also a lack of responsibility taken by any one agency or multiple agencies for assessing and managing the risk posed by Rudakubana.

“Agencies repeatedly passing the risk to others and closing or downgrading their own involvement is not effective, or responsible, risk management," Sir Adrian said.

"If, as a society, we are to avoid repetition of what happened in AR’s case, this culture has to end. This is the single most important conclusion of Phase 1 of this report. This failure lies at the heart of why AR was able to mount the attack, despite so many warning signs of his capacity for fatal violence.

“I have made a number of recommendations in this report. Some of these recommendations are urgent; others will require longer-term structural reform. But all share a single purpose: to reduce the risk of another young person following a similar path to catastrophic violence.”

Sir Adrian said “degrading, violent and misogynistic material” viewed online by Rudakubana fed his “already unhealthy fascination with violence”.