The inquiry into the Southport mass stabbing has heard that Axel Rudakubana was discharged from child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) just six days before he murdered three young girls. A risk assessment was conducted on 23 July last year, but its findings have not been disclosed. Rudakubana, then 17, went on to attack a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club, killing three children and injuring several others.
Rudakubana's brother, Dion Rudakubana, made his first public statement, expressing “the most immense pain, anguish and grief” for the victims. He asked the inquiry chair, Sir Adrian Fulford, to examine whether social services and other agencies could have done more to prevent the murders. Dion, a Warwick University student, said he had limited contact with his brother after Axel was expelled from school at age 13 for carrying a knife and attacking a pupil.
The inquiry was told that Rudakubana had been receiving Camhs support since February 2021 after being diagnosed as autistic, but was never diagnosed with a mental illness beyond anxiety. A chronology revealed he stopped cooperating with specialists in 2022. Teachers raised safeguarding concerns three times in early 2022 about comments he made on the Holocaust and Jewish people, but these were not referred to the Prevent programme because the school had already made two referrals that led to no action.
Specialists expressed concerns about Rudakubana's parents, describing their role as “consistently unhelpful”. During a 2022 consultation, psychiatrists were “perturbed” by his father's behaviour and worried about the teenager's weight loss and lack of supervision. A social worker noted “tension with the father” and an incident where Rudakubana poured milk on his parents' bed. Lancashire County Council, responsible for his welfare, has acknowledged failings in its handling of the case.
