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Southport murders: minister backs law reform amid calls for whole-life term Southport murders: No 10 rejects calls to change law on whole-life sentences
(about 7 hours later)
John Healey says he hopes Axel Rudakubana, 18, spends rest of his life in prison for murder of three girls Downing Street says whole-life terms cannot be extended to killers under age of 18 because of international law
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. Downing Street has rejected calls for sentencing reforms, saying it does not have the power to extend whole-life sentences to killers aged under 18 because of international law.
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. Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to 52 years in prison on Thursday for the murder of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, at a dance class last July, and the attempted murder of eight others, as well as two adults who tried to save them.
The defence secretary, John Healey, said Rudakubana should stay in prison for the rest of his life as ministers reviewed sentencing guidelines. He was not given a whole-life sentence because he was 17 at the time of the murders.
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.” Even though Rudakubana is not likely to be considered for release until he is 70 years old, the Labour MP for Southport, Patrick Hurley, said the sentence was “not severe enough”. His comments were followed by calls from the Conservatives who said there was a “strong case” for the law to be changed, one that their party would “start to explore”.
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.” While No 10 echoed remarks by the defence secretary, John Healey, that the UN convention on children’s rights stopped Britain from being able to impose unlimited sentences on under-18s, their views appeared to differ as Healey refused to rule out changing the law to extend whole-life sentences to killers aged under 18.
He also expressed horror at the details of the attack, which were read to Liverpool crown court on Thursday. “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.” “We owe it to those victims to consider and then deliver the changes that their memories deserve,” Healey told Times Radio, adding: “The prime minister has made it clear that nothing is off the table.”
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.” A spokesperson for No 10 said: “We share the public’s disgust at the extent of the crimes here, and we, as the defence secretary said this morning, don’t want to see this man ever coming out of prison. And that’s a view shared by the government.”
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.” However, they added: “We’re restricted in our ability to extend whole-life orders by UN laws. And I think it’s important to reiterate, this is something the previous government recognised when it changed the law in this area previously.”
The Reform UK MPs Rupert Lowe and Lee Anderson called for the return of the death penalty – the minimum age for which was raised to 18 in 1933, before it was abolished in Great Britain in 1969.
Downing Street insisted the government had no plans to bring back capital punishment, and said parliament had consistently voted against it being restored in recent decades.
Hurley said he was alarmed by the prospect of Rudakubana being allowed to apply for parole when some of the survivors of the attack would be in their 50s.Hurley said he was alarmed by the prospect of Rudakubana being allowed to apply for parole when some of the survivors of the attack would be in their 50s.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast he said: “What I don’t want is that those little girls, who’ve had their childhoods traumatised, are then re-traumatised when they get to the age of 55, maybe 56, and have to see him apply for parole again and again.” Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: “What I don’t want is that those little girls, who’ve had their childhoods traumatised, are then retraumatised when they get to the age of 55, maybe 56, and have to see him apply for parole again and again.”
Sentencing Rudakubana, the judge, Mr Justice Goose, said: “It’s likely he will never be released.” Rudakubana was not present to hear Mr Justice Goose impose a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years, as the court was told he was likely to be “disruptive”.
Hurley said: “The exceptional nature of those circumstances necessitates an exceptional sentence and I would very much like to remove that word ‘likely’ from the judge’s sentence.” The government plans to change the law so criminals are forced to attend their sentencing hearings, but if defendants are “purposefully disruptive” or “offensive” during proceedings, their attendance may not be appropriate, Downing Street said.
A solicitor for the families of the Southport victims urged the public not to post graphic details online about the attacks. A No 10 spokesperson said they hoped the public inquiry into the Southport stabbings would move “as quickly as time allows”.
Sara Stanger, head of serious injuries and public inquiries at Bond Turner solicitors, was asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about online claims that the media was covering up details of the attack. Timetables and terms of reference would be set out once the government had consulted the coroner and given families the opportunity to comment, they said.
She said: “The families plead for respect and restraint when people are posting online. They want to remember their daughters for the lives that they lived and not how they died. This isn’t a cover-up in the media’s respectful reporting, and the families call for the public to be as sensitive.”